HIVVER|W1NTER|XEIΜΏΝ

  • EWTO — GYM RAT

    EWTO stands for (Excuses We Tell Ourselves) maybe I’ll make this into a thing maybe not we’ll find out.

    Starting off the new year fresh talking about the GYM as I return home from the GYM. I’m going to use this time to speak to an older version of myself… that I’m sure a lot of artists can relate to. This is important advice. So listen up.

    Or don’t, what do I care? I’m not your dad.

    YOU NEED TO EXERCISE

    No, I’m not being hyperbolic, I’m not trying to give you an identity crisis. This isn’t about weight, this isn’t trying to FLEX (though if you want me to ;> I will).

    • You spend a LOT of time sitting. Like a LOT a LOT.
    • You spend a LOT of time creating a repetitive motion with your arm.
    • You spend a lot of time bent over your work, I’m sure your lower back is crying for attention.
    • You maybe even spend a good chunk of time Actually Lifting (for conventions… for travel to these conventions… unless you make someone else do it… then it’s just embarrassing)*

    *Look don’t try to read bullshit into this, you can choose to read this disingenuously and argue with a fake version of what’s going on here or you can keep reading.

    LETS START WITH THE EXCUSES YOU ALREADY STARTED CONJURING IN YOUR HEAD WHILE YOU WERE READING THIS BEFORE YOU EVEN DECIDED TO GIVE ME A SHOT IN EXPLAINING THINGS–

    But, I get headaches, won’t this make those worse?
    Fun fact, sometimes this helps reduce migraines and it actually HAS done so in my case, I used to get 2-3 migraines a week on bad weeks, now I get maybe 1-2 headaches a month on bad months (notice the uh drop from migraine to headache–CANDIDLY– other factors HAVE influenced the decrease too, but this is one of the major ones).

    But, I’m, like, really busy with doing Real Work.
    Haha, that’s so funny. Is your work immediately life-threatening? No? Then you can Make Time to exercise. Block it out 2-3 times a week. Half an hour. You’ll notice a difference sooner than you think.

    But I Don’t Like The Gym.
    Okay, I sympathise here, the Gym as a workout space is not for everyone (honestly the fear of being somewhere New and Different stopped me a LOT at the beginning, especially–OHGOD–with gym bros around–(these guys are a lot less scary than you are making them out to be, I promise)). That doesn’t change the fact that you still have to exercise. But there ARE alternatives. We’ll talk about it later.

    But the Gym is too far/too expensive.
    Again, I sympathise, and, as mentioned above, there ARE alternatives to going to the gym & I have tried them myself. We’ll talk more in-depth about those later (or in another post… this one’s getting long-winded).

    This exercise thing… it’s non-negotiable, friend. This is keeping your body from deteriorating, and allowing yourself to live more comfortably in the future when you’re in you’re 30s (and above) and can’t just take your rubber-bounce-back-youth for granted.

    Okay, now that we’re done with that and we’re ready to read and take things in without making big excuses, let’s actually talk about what all of this means.

    OK, SO I NEED TO EXERCISE, WHERE DO I EVEN START?

    YES. OK.

    We don’t want to start off hitting the ground running. We don’t want to start off hurting ourselves, friends, this is a new habit we’re cultivating into longevity.

    You’re a shrimp. Literally. Figuratively. You need to start balancing yourself out. You need to start working your:

    • Shoulders (watch your traps, those are the migraine bastards–for me anyway) focus on Deltoids.
    • Upper Back (honestly your back is gonna be your main focus because a lot of your repetitive motion is in your front/pectorals)
    • Abs & Lower Back (heehee we LOVE these guys–this is the one you’ll have to be careful about, start small with these guys & work Up)
    • Arms (you’ll want to focus on strengthening your biceps & triceps & wrists to avoid putting strain on elbows)
    • CARDIO. (this is really important, frankly, also doubles as leg-day because I just put my elliptical on high and muscle through it for a few minutes before ending on easier shit)

    Well that’s nice, HIVVER, I have a lot of notes but what things should I be starting with?

    IF YOU ARE GOING TO START WITH ANYTHING START WITH CARDIO.

    I know… she’s the one we LOVE the most. //massive sarcasm

    Okay so the thing with sitting all day is that your body doesn’t get enough circulation and your heart doesn’t get enough action. That leads to a lot of [medical shit] and I’m not a doctor, I just know they’re not wrong when people tout the age-old.

    Sitting is the new smoking.

    Now, cardio doesn’t mean you have to RUN or JOG or SPRINT or even SWEAT really. You just need something that is going to get you Moving.

    I, personally, like a funky elliptical… I like a rowing bike (for like 5 minutes till I hit my 1000kms and then swap to elliptical). I do not like spinbikes… mostly bc i like the full-body push of elliptical.

    Treadmills are my enemy but I will make pleasant with one if I must. I don’t like running on them because I get vertigo & always feel like I’m gonna slip and fall. When I have No Choice (bc all the ellipticals are occupied), I push that incline up to max and do my time that way. Slow but hard. ;>

    BUT–listen I know, alternate-to-gym options include an age-old walk around your neighbourhood. Or, if you have one, a bike ride in the same vein. The point is to Move. Do anything. Go anywhere. You can do jumping jacks in your house. You can walk up and down the stairs in your building a couple times.

    If you’re REALLY busy (ie: when I used to work part-time at my bookstore job) take the walk-option. Take the stairs through public transit. Fit it in & make it count.

    THE IDEAL IS: 30 MINUTES.

    But doing ANYTHING is better than nothing even if its 10-20 minutes.

    TINY TIP: TREAT YOURSELF

    Look, I honestly, to no shock or surprise, hated cardio to start. I struggled a lot with it especially moving to the city (i used to bike a lot in the ‘burbs and loooved it). I used to get a lot of dizzy spells because I’d push too hard, wouldn’t be eating nearly enough to power through something like that. The only way I got through it to start (to the point where I actually enjoy it now) is to treat myself to some sweet jams.

    (Here’s what I’m listening to these days, in no particular order:

    • Spencer Sutherland’s THE DRAMA album
    • Kite Machine’s self-titled THE KITE MACHINE album
    • Anything Des Rocs (shh)
    • Easy – Son Lux
    • Killer – Sordid Pink
    • Supernatural – World’s First Cinema
    • Monolith – Twin Pumpkin)

    At first it was a dedicated play-list. But now I just hop around between upbeat tracks and the occasional slow ride (gotta catch your breath once in a while). Something that small can really change the way a workout rolls. I feel honestly naked without my earbuds for cardio if I don’t have them with me. Turns out Cardio & my 30 minutes of it lets me melt away from my pent up stress & anxiety. Now the weeks I DON’T get to do it I feel like a husk of a person LOL.

    But say, you don’t really care about music or that’s not a big enough draw.

    Look, I don’t know you, but I do know a lot of you could use some Time Away From The Internet. Cardio can bring you outside, experience your local communities, discover new places in your neighbourhood. Cardio can make you look at a really beautiful day and go, ‘actually a walk WOULD be nice today’.

    Disconnect. It’s fine. We’ll all still be here when you get back. Please.

    IT’S TIME TO BRING OUT THE GUNS… FOR STRENGTH TRAINING.

    [insert a sly little smirk here]

    No, you can’t get out of this one, babes.
    No, stretches are actually Not Enough to prevent carpal tunnel.
    Yes, this is actually important.

    You need to strengthen the opposite muscles you’re constantly stressing.

    This doesn’t mean picking up the biggest weight you possibly can and doing as many reps as you can with that weight (you can hurt yourself doing that… pls don’t).

    There are hundreds of exercises you can do to work out the parts of your body mentioned above. I think I’ve rambled on here enough this post is getting a bit long so maybe I’ll highlight some of my favourite exercises in a different post + at home alts I do with my partner… another time.

    If you’re impatient and want to get working now…

    You will want to prioritise weight training your upper back and AVOID pectorals until you’ve trained your back enough to compensate for your shimp-age. If you don’t want CRAZY GAINS (aesthetically speaking) you will want a lower weight setting with More Reps vs a higher weight setting with fewer reps.

    Here’s a bit of a low-down in case none of that made sense: because I’m strength-training for muscle gain & strength gain I’ll set my machines at 20 KG pushing the weight up off my back, 35 KG to pull the weight down towards my chest both of these repeated 7 times, take a 60 second break and repeat that 7 for 3 rounds. If I didn’t want to gain muscle mass I’d change the 7 to 13-15 and keep the 3x but at a lower weight setting (20KG –> 10KG or 35KG –> 15KG).

    For those curious I’m strength training to be able to much more easily lift 45-50KG because that’s the minimum weight requirements for a LARGE suitcase on most airlines… and I gotta drag that shit through public transit to GET to the airport so you know. Ulterior Motives and all that.

    The reason I really like the gym for strength training is that I can use machines that help not only illustrate what part of the body that machine works on, but it also usually encourages you to use proper form. Lower your weight settings, use the diagrams, focus on getting the shape of the motion right so that you aren’t hurting yourself. Free weights are wobbly for me, I also get flustered easily around other people so I’m practising with my own set at home. It’s easier now that I’ve built a muscle memory from the machines at the gym I feel like I have more control.

    RULE OF THUMB: if you ever feel a sharp pain especially in your joints doing ANY exercise, stop your set & STRETCH. If you keep going you might give yourself long-term damage (it’s a pain in the ass but better safe than sorry).*

    *This is also important with CARDIO… repetitive running motions can put a lot of strain on your knees & ankles so pay attention you’re not overdoing things… also a good time to makes sure you’re running & walking form is good.

    The point of exercise is to do it with intention. Don’t forget to activate your abs while you’re walking, running. This builds a good core that helps that poor lower back of yours from crying for help.

    Unlike cardio, there’s no work-around to strength training, really, just that it takes maybe 10 minutes on 2-3 exercises and you’re done. Do them at home, do them at the gym, but just do them. Please. It really does make a difference.

    I’m also just really tired of hearing artists complain about carpal tunnel/tennis elbow when like there’s a preventative right here.

    YOU BETTER BE STRETCHING.

    Look, stretching isn’t the end all be all but it is mandatory after working out.

    This one’s self-explanatory, before you work out you gotta warm up–(yes I… I totally do this…//okiforgetsometimes) and stretch out all the muscles you just worked out right after the big work out.

    I won’t pretend I’m perfect. This is the ideal. But really you’re only going to regret it later after resting, that you DIDN’T stretch those muscles you used… trust me.

    If you didn’t stretch right after a work out, its never too late, you can always stretch later but like, beware because all that lactic acid you just let out of your muscles from training’s gonna make them ache something fierce.

    Stretching can honestly only do so much but this is a good preventative measure, overall. I was being harsh earlier but if you CAN’T fit a work out in one day, make sure you’re stretching if you’re doing lots of desk work. You probably know this, I’m just reminding you. If you haven’t stretched today… do it now. Take a few minutes.

    OK ONE LAST THING BEFORE I’M DONE WITH MY SOAPBOX SCREED — BREAKS.

    Like everything you need these. Take them. Seriously. From work, from gym, from stress. You owe it to yourself to take an hour out of your day minimum, to do absolutely nothing, sit and listen to tunes with your eyes closed. Read a couple chapters of your book. Have a cup of tea, a little drink. Sit in a park and breathe.

    Also don’t sweat taking a week off Gym/exercise once in a while. The rest does just as much good as the exercise does, especially if you keep consistent with it.

    Okay I think that’s ENOUGH shaking you and making you listen to my rabid rant about working out. I just want you to be living your best life out there…

    Also if you got this far, could you do me a solid, especially if you’re masc-core because this is the one thing absolutely obliterating my brain when I go to the gym:

    WHAT THE FUCK DOES A DUDE WEAR TO THE GYM…to pass… as a dude pls… im begging…where do u shop for athletic apparel that isn’t leggigns… but also won’t make me fry at the gym because our gym is right by a pool so the heating is blasting all the time–also mm don’t like shorts v much unless i have to–

    OK BYEE~

    DISCLAIMER: I’m not a doctor. Just a guy whose tried some shit and its worked at making me feel better overall. Like I said, this is more of a screed scolding my past self for waiting so long to really make the leap.

    If you were looking for someone to make that push for you, here it is <3

  • 2024 – A Retrospective

    Everyone’s making these this year but I’ve been doing them for 4 years now so I’m more hip & With It.

    I Jest, I Jest. I got into the habit of doing things like this starting 2020 because, as we all know, that year proved certainly quite interesting. So here I am, upkeeping the tradition on a NEW WEBSITE at 2AM after partying hard (playing board games) with my siblings & drinking enough coke to make my stomach absolutely pissed at me. (…oh man the demons that came out of me at 7am…. folks… i haven’t held onto life so hard since this happened to me a few years back).

    I’ll be sure to plop the retrospectives up here from the previous years & back-date them. I’m still organising things between 3 different websites and trying to head into 2025 a lot more… Collected than I have been in a while.

    So, after reading my 2023 recap earlier today, I’m happy to say, that for me, personally… 2024 was not that bad… it wasn’t GREAT but the ups and downs kind of equalled everything out to a net nothing. I feel like I did a whole lot of Nothing. Lots of Waiting…. like… LOTS of waiting… for nothing & not knowing what to DO while doing all that waiting. Let’s slap some pros & cons down why not?

    PROS

    • GOT MY NAME CHANGE OFFICIAL!!
    • License, medicare, passport sorted
    • Saw an Eclipse in totality!! Wow!!
    • Wrote a lot?
    • Finished a LOOONG running TTRPG!
    • Found a LOTTT of new music
    • Broke record for # of conventions in a year
    • LESS MIGRAINES??
    • MAINTAINED THE GYM???
    • Finally got the tatt I’ve been wanting for YEARS
    • Got into local Artist Alley Shop!

    CONS

    • It took like fucking 9 months & then some! 8)
    • I still have a LOT to update … but heyyyyy
    • Paid $4,000 in vet bills!
    • Didn’t draw too much
    • USA elections… hahaaaaa wooooowee;;;
    • Missed Des Rocs in concert (tragic)
    • Still can NOT get Hal-con???
    • Hemorrhoids [grimace]
    • …too much take-out;;
    • Missed out on a tat from an artist I rly admire ($4k rip)
    • Canada Post strike killed our sales womp

    So, like, QUITE up & down this year. The name-change wait was pretty excruciating and the process right now is still like… Ongoing. I’d like to make a post detailing it a lot more in case it would help someone else in my situation. I went a bit… unconventional about it, and maybe it’ll help others in a similar spot. Plus it’s just kind of wild documenting a process that’s so convoluted for No Reason!

    Anyway.

    Let’s see if I can remember how this year went. I promised to take notes but I didn’t and I’m starting to wonder at my neuro-divergence’s lack of diagnosis. Haha. Too bad THAT also costs the magic number: $4000+ so we’re putting THAT off one more year~

    Here we go:

    THE MONTHLY BREAKDOWN…

    JANUARY — This feels like 500 years ago. Waiting Waiting, painstaking waiting. It’s been 4 months since I put my name change in. I get a notice, yay application was RECEIVED…as of [end of January] it will take… FOUR MONTHS FOR THE DECISION TO BE MADE… M-more waiting ok…;;; We take it easy bc 2023 was Insane. We also have a tiny con here to donate all our proceeds to the efforts in Palestine. It’s a really nice little show! Tas & I have been together for [redacted] years!! Exciting!!

    FEBRUARY — Wow our con-season started early tbh. Maybe that’s why this year felt so long. We had Montreal Maker’s Market’s Valentine’s show this month. Slower show than the Holiday one which makes sense. We have a calm February, start getting back into the swing of things.

    MARCH — Tas’ birthday month. We’re always spending this month cutting things down to the wire preparing for Calgary expo at the end of April. Honestly. This is all a blur. We’re also preparing for PINTOPIA 2 (Backerkit’s Enamel Pin Prompt)… this is also the month we spend scrambling for commissions… and footing Ghost’s vet bill bc the poor guy also has to get his teeth pulled… (Ghost… does NOT like to be handled… so… this was pretty much a nightmare situation for us).

    APRIL — Ghost’s recovery… poor guy. I was really proud of myself the two weeks we had to give him medication. It was such a mental turmoil. Ghost was never a nervous cat BUT– he was always really wary of us actually handling him physically and I had to give him 2 doses of antibiotics, 2 doses of one pain killer, 1 dose of another painkiller… into his mouth, the thing that hurts him. Anyway he took his cone of shame off the second day he was home (AAA) and then I was the only one who could approach him (because Tas usually works with him on the whole ‘picking up’ training so he’s always wary of them (AAAA x2)) He didn’t like me much by the end of those 2 weeks. I think I missed a couple of his shots by the end but he’s better now so I guess that’s all good?? Oh yeah– also 7 Deadly Pins launches, successfully on backerkit for PINTOPIA and I guess we dip for CALGARY EXPO (and find out that everyone’s gonna be in the BMO for 2025 so that should prove interesting this year, I think).
    ALSO WE GOT INTO OTAK BY THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH LETSGOOOOOOOO!!!

    MAY — The name change decision is looming, I get a call but its just bc they need Tas’ ID idk to make sure they’re a real life person who can vouch for my feelings or something (the lady on the phone was nice and said I should be getting a response abt my name change… soon… but it shouldn’t be an issue) hahaaaaa;;;;
    Oh well hey, our Dino Plushies launch and succeed pretty well but wow yikes those testing fees are insane (and totally fucking useless now, $4k (what the fuck is up with this number??) down the drain whateveritsfine) Also we do our usual Gauntlet and have TCAF (we were invited by other Hive artists to do a stamp rally which was really cute and fun ;;A;; so sorry again for forgetting our stamp ffs i promise we’re more professional than that) & MCAF which is always a blast~!

    JUNE — God that name change… my dudes… my bros… I call them up like “teehee… is there any chance I can get an update?” and the same lady who called me about Tas’ ID goes, “:) no”. So I’m waiting….. and waiting…. and waiting (and just about peeling my skin off about it lbh)

    JULY — JUST before I decide to call them again, fucking irritated at this point– what’s that… in the mail???? MYGOD????? YAHOOO!! YIPPIEEEEEE!! It’s official. ITS LEGAL. My name!! (also a list of things i gotta get working on to change–shhhh–). Happy MTL Comiccon… wow that show fucking sucked!!!! We did half our sales we made the year before!! It’s Dismal! Wow! We just spent 4k on vet bills!!!!!! aaAAAA!!!

    AUGUST — We do Otakuthon it goes well, but we definitely didn’t do as good as we did 2 years ago… but we’re in a recession and we’ll take what we can get. I also get my funky lil photos taken for my new Medicare card & my License…. oh the license, more on that in my other post about The Process, I think. Happy Birthday 2 me I’m now 3[redacted] years young :> Also we got all our pins for the 7 Deadly Pins so that means we’re shipping things out in September!

    SEPTEMBER — Oh hey we actually made it back to Ottawa Comiccon this year! It was nice! We did better than we expected but we already had an …. extremely low bar for it this year. So we decided to book a table for 2025 and see if we can get an upward trend going! This is our last big con b4 the

    OCTOBER — Prism Knights!! Plushies!! OC-Tobers!! A tiny break to do some spooky shit!! I swear we blinked and this month was over. I think I only managed a few OC-tobers before quitting because I just couldn’t focus long enough and none of them ‘felt right’ (looking back on them I really like how a bunch of them turned out so maybe I was just overwhelmed/frazzled and couldn’t really focus). I spent a lot of time with friends this month… but it’s been a rough year for them and my mental capacity is just so fucking angry at the state of things for them. UGH. Things are getting better though, we’re all getting through it one day at a time.

    NOVEMBER — The longest month ever!!! I don’t know this month stretched on and on. It was pretty nice. I actually beat NANO this year! I reformatted Prism Knights One Last Time for its anthology. We didn’t get the hardcover (I’m still bummed but maybe one more time… in the future…) Canada Post goes on strike… honestly good for them. I was really rooting for them this holiday season. Disturb that peace, fight for those rights! We end the month off with 2 back-to-back weekend events.

    DECEMBER — And start this month off with 2 back-to-back weekend events. I’m exhausted. But I’m also missing my writing routine so I start up a new routine to write 500-1000 words a day. You can read about it on it’s landing page (or start post). I scramble to pick up gifts bc the post is still on strike (unfortunately they’re sent back to work before demands are met…. way too late to make up holiday sales so like honestly it feels like salt in the wound for small businesses who were in support of the strike, watching CEOs & the Government take their rights away. I’m angry!! I’m so mad at this!! And I’m also mad at every Canadian Shithead who went on screeds about how Canpost sucks!! You suck!! ARGH). Christmas was quiet this year, half the fam’s on vacation in the sun. I’m happy to stay home and rest and recoup… except we spent the last week overhauling the W&W website……….. that’s not REAL work is it??

    As I was writing this, my year of seemingly Nothing sure starts looking like a year of actually A Lot Of Things because there’s 365 days to do shit. I just know I didn’t entirely succeed at all of the things I set out to do.

    2024’S GOALS…

    Okay lets see, my Resolutions or GOALS from last year included:

    • Pick a writing project & finish it. It wasn’t the draft I was EXPECTING to finish but I DID progress on that one during NaNo AND I did FINISH a draft (and am almost done a SECOND draft on a different story) so I’d say, mission success!
    • Finish one whole sketchbook. That’s right we’re going back to traditional baby (at least for fun). Haha … haaaa ohhhhhhhhhhhh noooooo past me is always so funny when i make goals like this… they just never wind up working out but the thought… was thereeee…;;;
    • Try a new art medium: lino-cutting, screen-printing, wood burning, puppet making. Something you spend time making for fun. turns out all of this Costs Money which we’ve been trying to save this year and we got scrapped of $8k this year in misc overshot expenses so I also didn’t really get to do this, this year… I actually miss doing photography which I lapsed entirely this year. Egh.
    • Read More. WE MADE EFFORTS. I’m in the middle of reading a couple things right now. Nothing finished. God I love doing it though. I might give myself a more concrete goal for next year.
    • Pitch Something. I didn’t FINISH the pitch but I’m working on a pitch I’m hoping to finalise this year forreal.
    • BONUS — Make a very short solo-comic. Nope…;;;

    Half & Half….. honestly this pretty much sums up my year quite well. Lots of Trying not much Finishing as I’d like but it’s all steps towards a better 2025?

    2025’s Goals

    This year I’m splitting these up into concrete & personal I think.

    LETS START WITH CONCRETE.
    • READ 30 BOOKS THIS YEAR
    • UPKEEP DAILY WRITING GOAL (500-1000 WORDS/DAY)
    • FINISH DAILY PHOTOS PROJECT
    • FINISH A SMALL SKETCHBOOK
    • FINISH THAT PITCH
    AND THEN THE PERSONAL/VAGUERIES
    • GET OUT THERE MORE/BE MORE PERSONABLE
    • TRY SOMETHING NEW THIS YEAR
    • GET YOUR HEALTH CHECKED (IMPORTANT, DUDE)
    • LESS… TAKE-OUT.
    • BUILD BETTER HABITS

    These make sense to me, anyway. I don’t have any of my work goals up here because that’s work and those promises are scattered and fluctuate… also this is my personal space, whatever. I don’t gotta answer to yOU– (sorry I’m feeling really funny this mor–afternoon as I wrap up this post at almost 2pm.

    But we still have One More Order Of Business.

    THINGS THAT STUCK OUT TO ME THIS YEAR…

    READ

    The V*mpire – P H LEE
    Become Of Me – Veronica Roth
    I’m Not Disappointed Just Mad AKA The Heaviest Couch in the Known Universe – Daryl Gregory
    Sacred Bodies – Ver
    In Fair Verona – Val Wise
    We Live Here Too – Kiku Hughes

    WATCHED

    Love Lies Bleeding
    Saltburn
    The Green Knight
    Suzume
    Drifting Home
    Wolf Walkers
    Sonic 3
    Delicious In Dungeon
    Pokemon Concierge
    The Terror
    Close To You (Elliot Page)
    Midnight Mass

    PLAYED

    Dredge
    Night In The Woods
    The Pale Beyond
    Cult Of The Lamb (2 Player DLC)
    Caravan SandWitch
    Planet of Lana
    Superfight
    Age of Ashes
    Fly Free or Die
    Heart of the Driftlands
    Pokemon Mystery Dungeon TTRPG (homebrew)

    A lot of my reading list is Shorts because I didn’t do MUCH reading but SHORTBOX always comes in clutch and I’ve been devouring TOR’s library of short stories lately. I’ll make a post on that later as I really start making my way through the library because reading short fiction has been REALLY fun lately!

    Movies…. and TV… just haha HMM wowee. I love film LOL.
    And Games… I really thought we did more but all these titles really just sat wiggling in my guts.
    I would add a list of shit I listened to but you could also just READ THIS POST about that instead.

    SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THINGS

    They might be Hot Takes, they might be Not Takes At all but here’s some thoughts about things I interacted with this year:

    • Short fiction good actually.
    • PAPER MARIO 64 is a better game than THOUSAND YEAR DOOR.
    • AGE OF ASHES — we’ve been playing this game for about 5 years and wowee am I still emotional about it! our GM did a fantastic job with the closing scenes I still get misty-eyed thinking about all our characters from this game ;A;
    • LOVE LIES BLEEDING its the best movie ever. I’ve watched it I think 7 times this year. Just thinking about it makes me wanna watch it again. Its OST pretty much wrote my pitch script for me.
    • DES ROCS i love… my beloved. My music. God I found so much shit For Me this year.
    • SPENCER SUTHERLAND a friend showed me their THE DRAMA album, it didnt hit my 2024 Tunes post this year because I only listened to it in DEC but its been on repeat since.
    • TEXT RP IS EVERYTHING TO ME its something I don’t talk a lot about but so much is going on in our little adventures every evening. We spend hours playing out our own scenarios. Its just fun! Organic reading and writing just for entertainment’s sake.
    • THE PALE BEYOND someone else PLEASE play this game I am DYING to talk about it and I’m still SHATTERED and EMOTIONAL about it.
    • NIGHT IN THE WOODS kinda meh, kinda overrated. Its ok. Didn’t age as well I think.
    • DREDGE hmmm haha wow. i really need to play it again. The new DLC is out……… maaaaybe….. its time.
    • SONIC 3 MY GOOOOOOOODDDD SHADOWWWW– fuck this movie was just stupid fun.

    Okay that’s enough reacting. I’m sleepy. It’s time for me to go take a fat nap with my son. I’m wishing myself, my partner, our cats, and YOU, reading this, with a much better 2025 (yeah even if 2024 was Okay or even Good to you, you deserve it).

    Let’s kick it in the ass. Onward & Upward.

  • Just A Very Smart List of Very Stupid Names To Safe Keep

    My cats are called Ghost & Pepper… on a clever account of Ghost Pepper being a spicy pepper & Pepper’s Ghost being a funky little mirror trick. These two black cats are pretty much everything to my partner and I currently, which means, naturally they have 500 pet names. I don’t think we call them by their actual names unless they’re being trouble or have a vet appointment…

    Anyway. I’ll be updating this list with every new name we give them. Some make 0 sense. You might be able to guess Which One Is The Troublemaker.

    PEPPER

    • Pepper
    • Piment
    • POIVRE
    • Pepperoniss
    • Roniss
    • Peppert
    • Pepper T. Ronis(s)
    • The Peppered Roni
    • Bean
    • Beanis Roniss
    • Beanits Ronits
    • Pepperoni Kiakas-Mukanik
    • Penis
    • Penis Ronis
    • Benis
    • Benis Wenis
    • BEEB
    • PEEB
    • PEEBS
    • BEEBIS
    • Peebis
    • Beenert
    • Beebert
    • Sleebert
    • Beb
    • Peb
    • Pebert
    • Weanis
    • Weanis Ronis
    • Weanert Beenert
    • Chicken Weanert

    GHOST

    • Gyoost
    • Goonis
    • Baby boy
    • Lil guy lil guy
    • Gustave
    • Gustavio
    • Goonis Ronis
    • Goose
    • Lil Goose
    • Goost on the Loost

    Anyway. I’m sure there will be More.

  • This Year’s Tunes (2024)

    Music really is my fuel. I don’t have anyone to really talk to about this stuff so I’m putting it here. If you have any recommendations that kind of fit these vibes (hell even if they don’t I’ll try just about anything once). Hit me up wherever else you can find me.

    DREAM MACHINE (LUCID EDITION) – Des Rocs*

    This album makes me absolutely fucking insane. Most of his stuff does. There’s a lot of really sharp old rock feel to his music, everything feels crisp and energetic. That guitar is so fucking dirty and crunchy. I also am just a sucker for Range. This album’s songs are just really flexible and change vibes while somehow all still feeling cohesive? Incredible. Well done.
    TOP 3 TRACKS: The Way It Has To Be / In The Night / Dream Machine

    .

    LET THE VULTURES IN EP – Des Rocs

    I’m in love with this EP. It’s got a moodier vibe to it, still keeps the high energy you’ll find in his later work but there’s a lot more snarky-shit energy to it.
    TOP 3 TRACKS: Maybe, I / HVY MTL DRMR / Let Me Live (Let Me Die)

    .

    “&” (AMPERSAND) – Bastille

    Quick vibe-check. Yeah I wasn’t sure about this album at first, it feels a bit one-note to start with but something about its melodic tunes really kept me coming back for more. The music is beautiful, lilting and sad… maybe nostalgic even? It really got me looking into the historical figures the songs bring to light. I fell in love with it <3 It had, honestly, huge shoes to fill after their GIVE ME THE FUTURE album.
    TOP 3 TRACKS: Seasons & Narcissus / Drawbridge & The Baroness / Zheng Yi Sao & Questions For Her

    .

    RITUALS ON THE BANK OF A FAMILIAR RIVER – Kiki Rockwell

    Oh… yeah I’ve got feral queer babes in the woods energy. Woman scorned through time, over and over again but what if she also got to get her just desserts for it too? There’s a LOT of really fun raw energy in this album. Again, lots of really fun variation going on in this tracklist but they all just really work together.
    TOP 3 TRACKS: Rise Up O Flame / Cup Runneth Over / Same Old Energy

    .

    THE KITE MACHINE – The Kite Machine

    Found these guys looking for some chill tunes to fit with one of my tabletop characters and wound up falling for the really fun deep bass tracks and the funky vibes of this entire album. Just feels like what I’d might listen to on a sunny day walkin’ down the street. Jammin’.
    TOP 3 TRACKS: Charlotte / Makeshifter / Sinister Sound

    .

    1981 – I DON’T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME

    IDKHow but yeah they fucking got my ass. I really like this EP. It’s honestly got a really fun sarcastic flair. It really hits fun 80s pop-nostalgia with lyrics that will really gut you… my favourite <3
    TOP 3 TRACKS: Choke / Bleed Magic / Absinthe

    .

    RAZZMATAZZ – I DON’T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME

    This one is a bit more low-key than their 1981 EP but there are a lot of good vibes here that I keep going back to and sneaking onto playlists here and there. This album’s vibe plays a lot with really dark humour in the lyrics, but there’s a lot of sincerity in here that kinda hits? Compels me.
    TOP 3 TRACKS: Leave Me Alone / From The Gallows / Kiss Goodnight

    .

    ROCKISDEAD – Dorothy

    Women. Am I right? Ugh this album has all kinds of guttural guitar and Dorothy’s voice is just… phenomenal. I love the scratch. I love how fun this album is. It’s just a real good time through and through.
    TOP 3 TRACKS: Kiss It / Raise Hell / Whiskey Fever

    .

    THE BITTER TRUTH – Evanescence

    I peeked in on my babe, Evanescence on a whim because, of course she was my #1 in high school and I hadn’t heard much from her since. Her voice? Still gorgeous as ever, her music still captures a lot of the old magic she had from Fallen, in my opinion. It’s a fun & moody dark listen.
    TOP 3 TRACKS: Yeah Right / / **

    .

    LANTERNS (SPECIAL EDITION) – Son Lux

    This guy’s… Weird. I think Unhinged is about the best I can explain it. There’s a lot of quiet murmurings and cacophonous unsettling moments. It’s not an album I can necessarily sit through on a whim but there are a LOT of mental tracks on this thing I keep going back for and picking at.
    TOP 3 TRACKS: Easy / Pyre (both versions) / Lanterns Lit

    .

    CITIZEN SLEEPER OST – Amos Roddy

    I got into this game because a friend of mine played its music for our Starfinder game as mood-setting, played the game, fell absolutely head over heels for this quiet electronic track set. The mood in these ones just ranges from thoughtful to hopeful to absolutely heartbreaking while managing to keep to the same Vibe.
    TOP 3 TRACKS: Matsutake / Among Ruins / Possible Futures

    .

    STRAY GODS – Austin Wintory

    I’m not a musicals-type bitch– (at least not always but sometimes… wow okay. Kick my ass). This is a game that’s a musical with variant options to pick from. I can’t even explain the mental gymnastics Austin was playing with planing musical motifs & alternate endings to songs and somehow EVERY VERSION of SEVERAL SONGS hits so hard I don’t even know what to do with myself.
    TOP 3 TRACKS: Challenging A Queen / The Ritual / It’s Time

    .

    MODERN VINTAGE – SIXX:A.M.

    Definitely not NEW this year, not even for me, but this guy is a real crutch & comes in clutch when I’m feeling really down. I love this album. Its fun, its really got an emotional core that keeps me coming back. I have both a glue movie… and a glue-album (this is p much my glue album).
    TOP 3 TRACKS: Stars / Drive / High on the Music

    SONGS ON LOOP

    I don’t know if I can fully grasp the SCOPE of music I listen to with just a slap-full of albums pasted above so here’s a slew of this year’s songs that wont stop worming in my brain:

    • Supernatural – World’s First Cinema
    • Monolith – Twin Pumpkin
    • The Dismemberment Song – Blue Kid
    • BAD BITCH – Tessa Violet
    • YES MOM – Tessa Violet
    • Sleepwalk – Forrest Day
    • Villain – Bella Poarch
    • Choke – I DON’T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME (acoustic)
    • Golden Boy – Bryce Fox
    • DEVIL – Shinedown
    • MONSTERS – Shinedown
    • Planet Zero – Shinedown
    • HONEY – Luna Aura
    • Another New World – Punch Brothers
    • White Whale – Everything Everything
    • Pathetic – Blame Candy
    • JEKYLL & HIDE – Bishop Briggs
    • Bathroom Bitch – HOLYCHILD
    • Son of Nyx – Hozier
    • Eat Your Young – Hozier (og & Bekon’s Choral)
    • The Fold – Wickerbird
    • That Unwanted Animal – The Amazing Devil
    • Whisper – Martin Rev
    • Gold Guns Girls – Metric
    • Love, Me Normally – Will Wood
    • Lampshades on Fire – Modest Mouse
    • Dangerous – Big Data, Joywave
    • Grenadine – Dreadlight
    • Dirty King – The Cliks
    • I Created A Monster – Hello Operator

    I think I’ve got to move on from this post here, for now. But I’m leaving this as an open-ended section I’ll link back to if folks are interested in my insane musical tastes.

    Cheers~

    * DES ROCS is a bit of a new find for me this year. I’d be lying if he wasn’t like my entire jam. If i could put my brain energy into music this would be it 24/7. So you might imagine how fucking devastated I was that he was playing in TORONTO while I was in CALGARY visiting family. Absolutely ruined. Touring one of my current favourite albums in existence. Fate pls bring this tour back for me and me only kthnx.

    ** This EVANESCENCE album still catches me by surprise. I haven’t listened to it solo enough to really pin-point favourite tracks aside from Yeah Right but listening through the whole album is easy and really nice idk! Felt right to include it in the list anyway~

  • 2023 Year Retrospective

    Oh…. we’re in for a rough recap this year. I usually do a lil skim of the last-years retrospective because I like to write these in a similar voice/short & concise so I don’t dwell on the negatives too bad but… uh… well… this year, overall fucking sucked.

    And I say this, knowing there WERE good moments, there are always good moments. There can’t NOT be in 365 days but the overall this year is that I fell into a lot of older bad habits from more depression-heavy stages of my life and I feel like I’m only now starting to get back on top of things.

    Trends this year are: just bad relationship stuff w/ friends & fam, literally any time something was mailed to us this year we missed it or it was sent delayed, all of our social media traction got absolutely obliterated, conventions we’ve been doing for over a decade decided not to accept our apps, most apps we sent out for anything got rejected, one of our cats got really ill twice. (And this is just personal… never mind all of the stuff going on in the world adding a layer of stress to it all, the massive forest fires during the summer, the tornado threats hitting Montreal, trans rights being obliterated at every turn, the ongoing genocides in Palestine & Ukraine, covid levels rising & the illness getting more tenacious etc etc etc). Yikes. Dudes.

    It’s been awful. I’ll be happy to see 2023 burn.

    Lets do a breakdown. I’ll TRY not to be a bummer but you have been warned.

    January — I admittedly need to start taking notes of things throughout the year I don’t remember MUCH of January because we did have a trip and that’s all I remember! We went to visit friends in Albany and hiked one of the Adirondacks and it was really lovely and gorgeous. I have a few photos from this post that I took during our hike! We ALSO sent Tas’ book, Lost Time in to print this month which was also quite exciting & then braced ourselves for the Long Wait.

    February — February was a big work-month for us! We spent a lot of time organising and working around our first convention in MARCH which was insane. We had our noses to the grindstone, working on Augustine and PTTR V3 trying to get V3 done before the year-dealine in June!

    March — ECCC baby! This was our VERY FIRST convention in the states! Okay well the last one I did was Vermont Comiccon in 20…15… I think?? It was a blast! We did pretty good though the trip itself was really expensive (west coast… get it together LOL). Folks were really sweet though! We came home from this and were immediately tossed into con prep for Calgary Expo in between working diligently on Augustine & PTTR V3!

    April — We didn’t quiiite make the deadline to have Augustine or PTTR V3 on the table for Calgary Expo but that’s alright, we decided to take things at a better pace with Augustine and PTTR V3 being a couple big expenses this year both in time and money so we had been taking things easy, chipping away at things slowly…. until I broke my iPad at the con and had to take up emergency commissions to scramble.

    May — We don’t talk about May. May was a lot of drama, a lot of miscommunication, a lot of angry feelings a lot of frustration about boundaries and changing certain traditions. May was red and angry like all the fires creating smoke that choked up most of the city into June. We did VanCAF & MCAF and if you approached me at either of these conventions and I was Out Of It…. well now you know… I was a mess, lol.

    June — We squeeze out fulfillment for Paint The Town Red Volume 3 yahoo! Just barely managed to squeak it through. We decide here and now to take a break from the comic for the rest of the year, citing we’ll be back with a new volume in 2025 instead of 2024. We also send Augustine Chapter 1 into print! …… we also learn we did not get into one of our big major cons… (I’m still salty about it. I’m extremely stressed about signups this year);;

    July — Montreal Comiccon time and not only do we get accosted by a tornado (Montreal doesn’t typically get those) but the two of us are hiking up the hill to the apartment in the insane weather conditions (we had to get home to our cats in case shit got worse) not to mention the storm pushed our Augustine shipments so I was stuck waiting all Friday for books (okay another weird trend this year is that anything we ordered for the business online would get here a day too late and upset our whole flow, not even due to our own bad timing just a lot of bad luck all around).

    August — Lol. If we weren’t talking about May we’re also not talking about August. Not only did we not get Otak we didn’t get Pride… we didn’t get to table AND missed it entirely even with a friend visiting in from the states because the vets we brought our cat to get a check-up at, dicked us around enough drowning him in medication he didn’t need. I was lucky I trusted my gut and put a pause on all of his medication or he’d probably be dead due to how little he was eating. We didn’t make anything and lost even more and this month had me so stressed for money I didn’t even know what to do with myself, I didn’t even know which direction to take our social media. We weren’t even gonna get paid for the last part of Tas’ advance for another 2 months aaaaaaaaaaaa (shoutout to Tas’ parents who helped with vet bills;;;)
    Happy birthday to me, lmao.

    September — Stress!! More of it!! We got into SPX but the show is uhh well it’s been a bit falsely advertised for eons, we’re disappointed with the return. We barely scratch even which is not really helpful right now, all things considered. I’m still a ball of anxiety trying to figure out what to do about our business, where do we go from here?? We have Augusteenies and its… well its slow-going. It’s definitely not picking up like I was hoping it might (I didn’t figure gangbusters but yeesh story of my life here). Lots of weird feelings… family stuff got patched up in August… but its still weird. I’m still wrestling with feelings. It is what it is. I’m putting my head down and sprinting through Augusteenies and Augustine inks. We build up enough of a buffer to take off for the rest of the year.

    October — I don’t even know where this month went but I spent a lot of time doing OCtobers and doodling for myself, playing a bunch of tabletop with friends. Tabletop and a few small friend groups this year were honestly my saving grace from going absolutely insane. We play a few games and take it easier than we have been all year. We sign up to a couple holiday shows in December.

    November — Is a bit of a blur. I’m not really sure what we did this month. I was early buying up all my Christmas presents. The two of us took it a bit easier since we were accepted into 3 different markets and shows in December. We nervously talk a lot about what we want to do next year. We’re still undecided. We dip out of a group chat that was straining on my stress. Some of my family catches The New Covid TM and plans are shifted around, things get dicey again. I’m exhausted.

    December — We did 3 markets and honestly did more than I was anticipating at all of them. Christmas is low-key this year. The two of us have had a rowdy year and wanted to make time for friends as much as we did for family. As I’m writing this we’re in the liminal-space in between Christmas & New Years and I still feel like I’m catching up, mentally with the year. We’re finishing up this year cat-sitting for a buddy and playing our new (used hehe) N64 my brother got us for Christmas and stewing in some old nostalgia playing Paper Mario. I’m feeling a bit better but still feeling quite beat up by the year.

    Ough this year was rough and I’m making it a point to admit that it was rough and making it a point to write about how rough it was because I have a habit of swallowing those feelings and letting them fester and hurting myself over them. This was a bit cathartic & validating to write, not going to lie. Yeah. This year WAS a mess, look at all that shit!!

    But this year DID bring a lot of good too. Lemme take a little moment to recap some of that here:

    • TAS PUBLISHED A BOOK!!! WOW!! And I’ve got a published Inker credit and that feels wild still!
    • WE RELEASED 2 MORE BOOKS?? (Augustine, Paint The Town Red Volume 3???)
    • We launched a webtoon!
    • I finally created and designed hats this year?? (It’s been on my to-do for eons)
    • I put in a request for a name-change officially (fingers crossed this is made official in 2024!)
    • We did our own record-breaking convention circuit at 9 shows in one year!
    • We finished the first arc to our Starfinder game with the new group
    • We FINISHED OUR FIRST TABLETOP GAME?? With our original Starfinder group!!
    • I got a new tatt and thats always exciting >:)
    • We’ve had a fantastic holiday run both on our main storefront & etsy this year!

    So hey its not ALL bad, of course! I’m already someone who doesn’t super like to dwell on the doom & gloom. I’m already looking forward to 2024. I feel like this year is going to be a bit brighter for us and I’m putting that hope into the air in the hopes that the universe decides to act on it. I have a few big wish list things I’m working on and I’m not trying to go into the year expecting too much but you heard it here first, I’m beaming positive rays into the future. Catch them, future me!

    Lets see though, before we jump forward at next year… last year I did set up some resolutions/new habits and I’m pretty proud of the way I’ve kept up with most of these especially this year:

    1- Write more consistently (this wasn’t CONSISTENT but I did do a lot more writing this year so hey!)
    2- Exercise more consistently (we struggled but did make a bigger effort this year & signed up to a closer gym to make it more feasible for 2024)
    3- Always prioritise: breaks, rest & friends. (this is my favourite goal, I think I did pretty good this year despite a few setbacks. I spend a lot less time feeling stressed about a time crunch so this has to be working somehow!)
    4- Practice a little bit more Illustration (don’t look at me, maybe one year I will finally succeed at this– tHOUGH i did do a lot of personal artwork that was outside my usual skillset–ie: images that are a lot more involved/fake screengrabs, a LOT more digital sketching.)
    5- Get your hands dirty with some film photography & stop being so shy about it. (uhm….. well my mental spiral kinda tanked this one but I did almost fill my whole roll on my sprocket rocket…)

    A secret bonus resolution that’s been at the back of my mind for a few years now was to dip away from using social media as a ‘time filler’ or falling into the habit of endlessly scrolling and feeling like ass/falling into discourse I’ve seen hundreds of times before. In some ways I really succeeded at doing this, I’ve killed both my private and personal public twitter accounts and have limited a lot more of my time from tumblr. Instagram has kinda replaced those as a time-sink, but over all I’ve put a lot more of my spare time into building and refining my website, our main Windy & Wallflower website and reading through other’s personal websites and blogs! Its been a nice new change!

    I never take resolutions to heart that’s why they wind up being a bit more on the vague side and I’m certainly not beating myself up for anything that didn’t 100% hit the mark. I think I want to set a few really small more specific ones that have been floating around in my brain lately. A few things I’ve been meaning to try my hand at again.

    For 2024 I’d like to

    1. Pick a writing project & finish it. I have a few drafts that have been hovering around with nothing but my own fear standing in the way.
    2. Finish one whole sketchbook. That’s right we’re going back to traditional baby (at least for fun).
    3. Try a new art medium: lino-cutting, screen-printing, wood burning, puppet making. Something you spend time making for fun.
    4. Read More. (Okay so we learned how to Take Breaks, lets use some of those breaks to get back into a hobby I used to love a LOT and stopped a bit more after University because this is a real self-care act for me and cannot be paired with a work-related task (drawing, editing, etc)
    5. Pitch Something. I’ve been in my own way about this for one year too many. Its time to take the bull by the horns and get something out there.
    6. BONUS — Make a very short solo-comic.

    As always these are not locked in stone or anything, just a few personal goals that I’ve been feeling this year and want to pull into next year. Admittedly these are less… Resolutions but these are all hopefully a basis to replace some bad habits I built up this year into more productive (see: makes me happier) outcomes instead of just… needlessly scrolling platforms I don’t really need to BE on.

    ANYWAY.

    I want to end off this year with a new little segment. I’ve been playing a lot more games & watching a lot more movies and such. In the future I might be able to list more of what I’ve actually devoured vs honourable mentions. I just kind of thought of it now so I’m really going off of my memory and probably going to stick to honourable mentions but I’d like to take better notes going forward!

    These are not in order of release or anything and some of these weren’t even released this year but this year’s when I devoured ’em so.

    TOP DOGS

    These are my fave things across the board that I experienced this year. From any and all these categories.

    • No Man’s Sky
    • Citizen Sleeper
    • This is How you Lose The Time War
    • Steven Universe.
    • Scavenger’s Reign
    • Hilda
    • Kintsugi Kid (on the new Fallout Boy Album..;;;; )
    • Godzilla Minus One

    READ

    • Cuckoo
    • This is How You Lose The Time War
    • The Pirate and the Porcelain Girl
    • A Guest In This House
    • The Do-Over
    • Robber Robert
    • Sad Girl Space Lizard
    • The Underkingdom
    • Utown
    • La Meduse
    • Hellaween

    PLAYED

    • No Man’s Sky
    • LOZ: Tears of the Kingdom
    • Stray Gods
    • Cult of the Lamb
    • Citizen Sleeper

    WATCHED

    • Super Mario
    • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
    • Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse
    • Asteroid City
    • Barbie
    • The Boy & The Heron
    • Godzilla Minus One
    • Steven Universe
    • Kipo
    • Orphan Black
    • Scavenger’s Reign
    • Hilda

    LISTENED

    • TRUSTFALL (P!nk)
    • So Much (for) Stardust (Fallout Boy)
    • Natasha Blume (Singles)
    • Stray Gods OST (Austin Wintory)
    • Self Portrait in 3 Colors (Dirty Honkers)
    • Citizen Sleeper OST (Amos Roddy)
    • Modern Vintage (Sixx AM)
    • Give Me The Future (Bastille)
    • End of the Beginning (Les Friction)

    Some of these are New Albums we got this year, others are just albums I know were in my brain and in my ears all year).

    I could pick and poke at this latter list here for ages, so we’ll leave it here for now with (hopefully) a more detailed one next year.

    See you all on the flipside~!

  • The Adirondacks

    Finally getting around to pulling this guy outta my drafts. In January I took a trip with my partner & a close friend down to Albany to visit with a big group of online friends we had made starting in 2020. I’m glad we made the trip. It was really refreshing and really nice to be able to get closer with this rowdy group! We’ve met once before last summer though Tas and I didn’t get to participate much in the hangout because we were booked with a convention.

    It was just really fun and really nice to get to see everyone again. I’ve got a lot of big sappy goopy feelings about this trip and this group in general but I’ll spare ya.

    Hi everyone, I know a lot of you are (probably) reading this haha!! This trip still sits in my brain so here’s the pics I took from our insane hike–I don’t think I’ve ever done a hike quite like this one but god did it feel amazing being at the top of that mountain!

    What an experience making that climb. I hope to work up my cardio better for any future hikes we have with this group. <3

  • 2022 Year Retrospective

    Cataloguing another year: 2022 in a line of extremely weird years. It’s, admittedly, hard to remember everything that happened earlier (like Jan-March). We’ve left a lot of the pandemic panic behind so this year was spent with a lot of weird navigating around different people’s comfort levels (and honestly my own comfort levels) in regards to covid and getting sick. Although there is still a cloud of anxiety around the illness it has lifted a lot this year for better or for worse.

    All that aside though, I feel like getting to see my friends more has done absolute wonders for me personally. I made it a greater mission this year, to pull away from social media. To take spare time and moments of boredom and turn them into more productive* uses of my time.

    * Productive less in the sense of work productivity and more in regards to just mental sanity, productivity, you know?

    I spent more time writing little blog posts, keeping on top of my organisation, creating small personal projects for myself. Right now, I’m doing a one-picture-a-day every day this year since I’ve turned 30 (… gods, thirty), I’ve gotten a fantastic little film camera for the holidays from my amazing partner (who absolutely endorsed my photo hobby by also getting me a camera harness haha– whose the camera dad NOW–I’m sorry at all my friends I WILL be that person who stops to take pics… a bit more this year idk we’ll see maybe I need to start taking more walks and having more adventures out in the city during 2023)!

    Okay, okay I’m getting ahead of myself. Point is. This was a pretty good year for me overall I think. I am… at least feeling like I’m in a more normal headspace now than I’ve felt since the pandemic began. I’m feeling less and less the obsessive addictive clutch of social media at my throat and I’m feeling a lot better for it. It’s been nice.

    I feel like I’m waking up from a fog this year and I’m pretty excited to see what 2023 has in store.

    But first, a little retrospective…

    January — Ouf this is going so far back I honestly can barely remember it. This was off the cusp of a terrible 2021 (yes I skimmed my last year retrospective to have a little remember–) in which the Holidays were a bit of a mess. 2021 wasn’t a great year but new years always make me a bit more optimistic. We start the year off by shipping out some blankets and nail it in a weekend. We have some big plans for this new year and hope the backlash with Kickstarter last year doesn’t hit us too hard. Its fine. We’ll bounce back somehow we always do. We celebrate 6 years of dating ;v;/

    February — Work work work! We generally spend winter months working on our projects, keeping our heads down. We hear a lot of talk of conventions. We sign up to a few of our own. We try not to run circles around ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’ when it comes to COVID. We go to the gym. We try and keep busy to avoid the panic and fear. We continue to wear masks and do what we can to mitigate getting sick. We do a lot of workouts at home with our new gear.

    March — We launch our first crowdfunding campaign for a deck of cards. It does well enough. We’re already starting to see some backlash and uncertainty when it comes to the platform but it still makes enough to help us with the final fulfillment of Prism Knights (the omnibus) and the hole the blankets left us in. We pay off our flights to make it to our first con. Celebrate a proper birthday for Tas finally. Things are also starting to look up a little more as the weather starts to shift with spring.

    April — Our first Official Convention back… woof. Its a scary one. By this point QC still has a mask mandate up in full swing with talks to drop it only mid-to-end of May so heading out west to Calgary Expo was… terrifying to say the least. Masks had been off for some time out there, the folks are pretty vocal about it. It was a bit of a weird show. People aren’t sure what to make of masking vs not masking. Its also become a lot more strained of a place to vend… our work is really queer, this province has instated mandates making it pretty not too queer-friendly. Luckily the show does well for us. The air is tense but we survive it.

    May — You’ll notice that this year we have about a new convention every month and the energy each of these takes occupies most of our planning life. This month is MCAF and its an outdoor show which is placed on St Denis street this year! In tangent with the warmer weather brightening our spirits, new booster shots being taken earlier in the year, this show goes much smoother, this month is spent with walks and spending time enjoying the sunshine we can as we full throttle into our preparations for a new webcomic… We spend a lot more time meeting up with friends. Its nice. Things feel different. Better.

    June — TCAF time! At this point in the year flights are starting to become…. somewhat of a troublemaker for travellers, the influx of new travel and the lack of staff means that flights are delayed, cancelled etc. I’ll spare the rig-a-maroll but you can catch the long and short of it in my TCAF 2022 post. We also launch our next crowdfunding campaign! Wow! Kickstarter is…. really not doing us a solid here. Paint the Town Red Volume 3 really struggles to pull through on a bare minimum goal. We start really considering a new method of raising funds in the new year. But hey, by the skin of our teeth we make it and we’ve got a whole new Volume to work on!

    July — The summer from this point on is an absolute blur. We do our usual Montreal Comiccon show and make more profit than I ever could have even considered possible at a local con Let Alone This One. We spend more time meeting up with friends and laughing until the late hours of the night and come home sore and tired and giddy. We also are hard at work planning our next webcomic, Tas is working feverishly on SanCirc to keep the updates going alongside the pencils to her graphic novel (coming Next Year!!) It’s one hell of a busy ride but its one that feels right for once. There’s a bit more of a normal settling in to this new routine. All this time the two of us continue to wear masks in enclosed public spaces… most Especially at conventions.

    August — Exciting! Otakuthon is the last of our big gambit of shows. Somehow we’re even more successful here than we are at MTLCC. I get to meet friends I’ve been talking to online for the past year or so for the very first time this month. I turn thirty which is both terrifying and exciting. I’m trying to feel more and more comfortable with aging. We also celebrate 1 year engaged! Its a hot month but the summer’s been pretty mild all things considered! I spend all of my work time sprinting through the inks for Tas’ graphic novel. We also officially launch AUGUSTINE on Hiveworks! Our new collaborative webcomic!

    September — You would think this is a more relaxed month but Tas spends a lot of it scrambling through the colours for her graphic novel. We work hard upkeeping our workload, somehow we have four comics going at once. Its pretty much mayhem at this point but we’re somehow managing the juggle (we’re um… promising ourselves a bit of a break come 2023 to at least finish up some of the stories we’re working on before we add a new one into the mix of things…). But we’re also fools and we run another crowdfunding campaign in the hopes to bring in some cash to tide us over proper for the holidays…. it uhh… also does not do as well as we hoped. Its a bit of a struggle but social media has been a massive heel lately and one of our main means of advertising our work (twitter) is not really doing so hot and really burning a hole in our pocket. We start talking a lot more heavily about re-configuring our priorities for 2023.

    October — We make a small trip down to Maine and witness our friends get married! Its a sweet wedding. I get to see people I haven’t seen in years and its absolutely wonderful! We get home and spend the rest of October decompressing, meeting with friends over warm meals of soup and cheese. Halloween is thoroughly celebrated in our household. We upkeep our funny little juggling with one less comic in the mix. I spend most of this month inking Paint The Town Red.

    November — The boys (our boys… our… cats…) turn 3! Happy birthday! These poor guys are pandemic babies so they struggle a little bit this year with our frequent trips and departures but Pepper is warming up to Ghost as a snuggle buddy a little bit more and most certainly making use of my lap every chance he gets. November slips through my fingers faster than I can say Boo. We show up for Expozine, and hey we actually got in without too much hassle this year which is a bonus.

    December — Tas visits home for a week for the holidays and I hold down the fort that week. December is a bit of a ride of complicated feelings and uncertainty. Its the first time my family is getting together for Christmas in two years and a lot of them are… quite careless about covid (I know everyone is tired and I’ve had to bite my tongue a fair share of times to placate despite my discomfort). We run the gambit anyway. Family gatherings…. just get harder every year. Some years more than others certainly. This year we had a big fistfight break out (everything worked out in the end we stopped anyone from getting hurt too badly). Moments like these you become increasingly more aware of the generational divide. Its just… a lot. The most sour note this year was this. I guess its not exactly the worst the year could bring at least.

    We’ve spent this last week of December taking it easy. The two of us are talking a lot about our goals and aspirations for the new year. We have a lot of plans but I know a lot of my personal goals for 2023 are extensions of my goals for 2022– maintaining a personal balance of work and rest as best as possible. Socialise more, and enjoy what I can.

    BUT since we’re ending on a good note this year, here’s a small list of resolutions I have for myself (mostly so that I can look back on this next year and see how well I managed~)

    A lot of my resolutions revolve making more consistent habits for myself:

    1- Write more consistently (a little bit every work day if possible but no penalties if not of course)
    2- Exercise more consistently (we did a lot better this year but if not Gym definitely at-home workouts)
    3- Always prioritise: breaks, rest & friends. (this honestly kept me sane this year)
    4- Practice a little bit more Illustration (maybe aim for 1 big illo project this year?)
    5- Get your hands dirty with some film photography & stop being so shy about it.

    I have a few more personal and project work goals to work out on my end but I don’t want to go into those in a public space like this haha. A lot of these are meant as loose encouragements vs Actual Guidelines. I used to be really hard on myself in terms of work output and projects and productivity and I’ve been trying to shirk that level of responsibility. My personal output has gotten better since allowing room for breaks. Living with chronic migraines means these shits can hit you anytime so being able to be flexible for it has helped a LOT mitigate the intensity of some attacks (and also actually diminished how frequently I get them bad enough I have to take my migraine meds). I’ve noticed a change a lot this year. I haven’t had to refill my prescription even once all of 2022 which is nuts!

    All in all 2022 was pretty good to me. There were definitely a few rough patches of course. I feel like there are some personal things straining a lot with me lately as a result of setting up boundaries with people not used to me doing so. Its been hard but I’ve been feeling a lot better for it.

    Here’s to an even brighter 2023. See you all on the other side ;>

  • A Short Hike

    If you know the game this title is referencing then eeyyyyy (its a really cute game) if not then I urge you to check it out! Ironically I wasn’t the one playing it but my partner played it a while back and I got to watch and it was very cute.

    Same vibes as this post! A friend invited us to hike up The Mountain and so we did and I took my camera along to capture the leaves changing colour because we were very fortunate to make it in time this year (I swear we just miss it every year because its gone from one weekend to the next).

    Admittedly I don’t really have too much to add to this post. I’m just feeling really thankful for the friends I have and sharing moments with them. I’m excited about the things we talk about. I’m eager to see what comes next but I’m taking things one step at a time. One Step At A Time.

  • Letting Go (Pieces of Myself Disappear With Time)

    I’m having a lot of currently complicated feelings about… big changes. I’ve been wrestling a lot with feelings of regret as I learn the art of capturing moments into stills and trying to be kind to myself about those missed chances. I’m trying to divorce my hobby of photography from an obsessive need to capture every single moment, from kicking myself with every instance I miss.

    I’m not a photographer, not really. I was once a filmmaker but nowhere is quite built for sharing small slices, small pieces of me and the things that I see. So I pivoted. Past an aching nervousness, past feeling like an absolute imposter and despite all the discouragement of an old teacher (yikes, ten years ago, now).

    I like to think that my voice in my photos has become stronger. I am enjoying the push and pull, the thrill against my own social anxiety and convention. Instead of worrying about missed moments. I take the time to make moments, to make my space in the world. To occupy instances of time I might be too shy to insist upon. If I don’t take these moments… I miss my chances. Sometimes I am okay with that. Sometimes the chance is not worth taking. I think these small lessons have taught me that it’s alright to make the mistake. To miss the moment. I will grow my eye for these moments with every chance and every missed instance.

    I think there’s something to be said about this, even in our lived experiences. In all of my time, both childhood and adulthood, I’ve missed chance after chance to document these spaces up north, the moments I’ve spent time there. I have a few to speak for. Certainly family members can pull up old files. But I sometimes lament the thought of missing the last chance I had to take in my grandmother’s old home.

    I took these knowing I’d feel this way if I didn’t take the chance, even if the moment seemed strange. Even if it perhaps looked a little strange to those who didn’t realise I was into photography as a hobby in the first place. I took the moment inside myself to trust my eye, and take this time and this space.

    Just these last two years I can feel the ways in which I’ve grown up. But somehow I feel like I have so much growing to do, still. Maybe that’s just a feeling that sticks with you forever. Honestly, that would have scared me once, to know that I’d never really feel ‘grown up’. That there’s not a particular age that determines this. That I’ll always be learning and changing and growing and becoming something different with every stage of my life.

    I’m not scared of that now. I’m definitely more scared of not getting to experience that full ride though.

    I took these photos during the small get-together after the funeral of a man who was the life and soul of this place. Of every place I knew up here in Lac-Des-Plages. He was a grandparent to me, his big jovial smile is distant in my memory already. It’s been years since I’ve seen it proper even when he was still with us. It’s sad what illness and ailment can do to a person.

    Change is exciting, but change can also be just as terrifying. I’m used to change being a crushing weight in my life as of late. I’ve lost a lot of family, and a lot of memories with them. I’ve lost a lot of places that were once dismal escapes as a kid. Being ‘forced’ to go play outside and make the memories I look back on fondly now. Sometimes I wish I could experience them just one more time.

    I don’t really know what to feel very much these days. But I know that change is inevitable, and a lot of it is out of my control, and losing this control is terrifying, but I’ll adapt and change, and one day grow from it. Become a more well-rounded person, become a more jaded and sharp personality. Who really knows until it happens to me in real time. I think either of these happening is okay. I’m allowed to be a rough personality, to be disliked from time to time. To be disliked by certain people. To have hard feelings to decipher and build a hard shell that softens only with time. I’ve been giving myself permission to feel these emotions, but not to dwell on them. The second part is the hardest.

    I also know that a lot of change comes from within, from decision I make going forward. People say life is short, but really its the longest length of time we have. I’ve come to notice the stillness of time taken in small moments. In breathing fresh air, in centring myself in moments of bliss, and happiness. Acknowledging these moments as strongly as I (unfortunately) dwell on things that hurt and take pieces of me with them.

    Its been difficult, but I think I’m doing okay all the same.

  • 2021 Year Retrospective

    Picture me taking a deep breath before going through this year. Its a bit of a doozy and I will try not to be a bummer because some parts of it, were much harder than others but I don’t entirely want to pretend like they weren’t. There were some good things. I do want to focus on those, but I feel the need to validate that this was just a really hard year for me and it’s going to take a lot of introspective and trial and error in 2022 to find that spark in me again. I feel like I lost it this year but, that happens sometimes and that’s okay.

    I feel like I struggled a lot this year personally with admitting my limits. With putting my personal well being at the risk of bending over for people. It was… really hard to find that balance this year. I don’t think I’m the only one who struggled and I want to be there for everyone the best that I can be. But I think I lost myself a little bit along the way. I forget that even though I can tough out a lot of things in the moment, the weight they leave behind can really add up. I leave this year feeling like I’ve failed a lot of people, both friends and family, despite my attempts to be there for them all. Its a lot to balance. But who is going to do it if not me?

    (Um… pro-tip the world still continues to turn even if I cant fix everything right away. I am… learning that very slowly. But we’re getting there).

    I am honestly extremely lucky to have a rock in my partner to keep me anchored through it all.

    But Ouf. Here we go.

    January — We spend the first month of the New Year in isolation, wrapping up a small project we decided to start on a whim in December last year. It’s hard but we expected it this year. Its weird typing this now, realising we were likely under curfew then and hoping numbers settled into some semblance of normalcy. I have a call with my publisher… this isn’t the start to a new year I was expecting.

    February — We wrapped up Myth Retold’s Kickstarter this month. I have three brand new books and I am emotional about them and the quality they bring. I am honoured by the folks who read them and tell me great things about them. It’s a while before things like curfew and numbers slow down on the pandemic side of things. But that’s okay, we’ll get through it and we’ll have a whole lot to show for it. We pass the year mark for Paint The Town Red here and feel… extremely guilty about it but its fine, its fine, we are almost there!!

    March — We celebrate a small birthday for Tas, things start looking up, pandemic numbers are dropping, there is news now about vaccines, there is a lot more hope here for a more normal summer but we’re not betting too greatly on it in the fear of being disappointed.

    April — We wrap up another Kickstarter: the Underworld Myths Collection and it goes relatively smoothly. Our business is re-organized we are keeping up with things better than we ever have been. Our numbers are doing pretty good for sales, the future does look brighter and we are eager for it. Eager for something a bit more normal.

    May — The last of our heavy burdens is lifted when we finally finish Paint The Town Red V2 in time for TCAF’s online show. At the end of this month we are all emotional, both our families receive their first dose of the vaccine against COVID. We’re extremely hopeful, extremely grateful and looking far more optimistically towards a summer with friends. That Tas might be able to finally travel back home to visit family.

    June — We launch a Kickstarter for Prism Knights. The last two books of this series put it to rest after I started it in 2017. Its bittersweet. The campaign does tremendously well. I am elated and floored by the reception of this little book series and have high hopes for future crowdfunding campaigns of the same vein. We end this month off on a high note, we get vaccinated with our second dose!! We have an outdoor gathering with family for the first time in just about two years. We celebrate my grandmother’s 80th and try to catch up on everything we’ve missed. It feels great to see people again.

    August — Is by far the most exciting month. The one with the highest ups, the lowest downs. Ouf. It is a lot. We start off by tabling at our first Pride. We are safe, wearing masks, pre-packaging all of our goods for any sales made and we are well over two weeks after receiving our second dose of the vaccination. We don’t sell great but getting out there again is fantastic.

    My partner and I get engaged!! I personally still can’t believe I plucked up the courage to ask her but it happened! Its an extremely hot month and this day is no exception. We are both elated and share this moment with eager friends.

    This moment is overshadowed by a few things. Family drama, funerals (honestly just poorly timed on my part I was too eager to have something happy to share in light of a lot of the negatives from the beginning of this year and the end of the last). The family drama persists and eats away at me personally for the rest of the year.

    I turn 29 and we are finally comfortable enough to start regularly going to the gym again (not related really but I am determined to get rIPPED this year).

    September — We celebrate my mom’s birthday together! Family drama persists and grows. There is talk of a fourth wave with a variant we call Delta at this time. Tas is too nervous to travel and postpones her trip home. I get an agent which is exciting! My book deal falls through though and I am personally ridden with guilt and frustration. I hate myself for this for months later. My tattoo appointment falls through, one I’ve been looking forward to for weeks.

    We launch a Kickstarter for a new product we’ve never attempted before with the help of our friends and find that it does insanely well. Money is a little less tight, we breathe a lot easier for a little while longer.

    October — This month is a little bit easier. We get enveloped in the spooky season. We take more walks and enjoy the scenery more. We entrench ourselves in our work and in watching spooky things to get into the mood. I struggle with the fog that’s overcome me. I feel like everything is a little bit further away but its okay. I’ll get through it. I chalk it up to a funk. I limit my time on social media hoping this will cut me a break and it does help in part.

    November — Tas is finally able to visit home. Its a weird time this whole week is strange, the two cats are not sure what to feel about it (happy 2nd birthday to them)! I attempt NaNo and don’t quite succeed at the full-throttle sprint BUT I do get an insane amount of writing done (far more than I have previously). The fog & feeling persists. I get a new tattoo (finally). The end of the month brings word of a new variant (omicron..)…. this one seems to spread despite the two doses of vaccine we’ve gotten so far…

    We do a couple small conventions and they are both like a breath of fresh air. To see people reacting to your work, to see a new table filled with different works we haven’t had the chance to display before… its just really nice.

    December — ….. ugh. The fog gets worse. Kickstarter shits the bricks with a new blockchain reveal, this will set our company back by the thousands if people keep to their word against pledging to projects on the platform. We aren’t making usual sales, on Etsy, on our shop. I melt down. I’m fine. I’m fine.

    The familial pressure starts to sink its teeth into my skin. I feel like I’m suffocating. I’m having terrible conversations and can’t seem to get across that I’m drowning even though it feels so obvious. I’m pushed into being placid and placating. I don’t know how to build boundaries without hurting feelings so I pull away. I don’t know how to tell people to stop without worrying I will push them away permanently.

    Breathe. This is hard for me to write because its the first time I’m acknowledging this openly. I don’t want to make enemies I just want to disappear for a while and breathe and breathe and breathe.

    I promise to make next year better for myself.

    I’m typing this and its nearly 2am and I don’t know who might see this, who might be hurt by it. I’m hurt. I’m hurting and I’m bleeding. This year I’ve struggled, placatingly through mis-gendering and inexcusable dead-naming. I am patient, I am so extremely patient. I let people sweep my engagement under mountains of pettiness and pain. I tell myself too often to shut up shut up. I can’t do this to myself anymore.

    2022 is going to be hard. But I need to make room for myself and learn what my limits are. I can’t be everyone’s rock no matter how hard I try. I still want to be there for everyone the best I can, but I need to learn how to make my own space to breathe and step back.

    I feel like I’ve lost a lot of friends in this pandemic through stress and miscommunication. But I’ve gained many more. Its hard for me not to second guess my worth, my opinions, my presence in bigger groups. I’m working on it, I’m working on it.

    Deep breath.

    It’s going to be alright. I’m picking up pieces and I’m shaping them back together and sometimes they break apart again but I breathe and I am patient and I put them back together again. It’s going to be okay. I need to learn some things along the way. I need to learn how to be kinder to myself. How to be stronger for myself.

    So maybe you will see some of this develop. Maybe you wont. I don’t know what kind of process I will share with you. I know I’ve been distant but this year broke parts of me I am trying to figure out how to put back together again. I’ll be fine. Just give me time.

    Hoping for better, and hoping anyone reading this has a better year too.

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