Category: Personal

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So…How Did 2025 Go?

At the start of 2025, I had one goal shared here on the blog: The No-Buy 2025.

In short, the goal was to not buy anything superfluous in 2025. Only necessities. No buying from major corporations (because fuck you, Amazon and Wal-Mart).

How Did It Go?

I actually managed to fulfill this objective…for the most part.

There were only two times that I lapsed: the end of August, and the first weekend of November. The reasons being that the end of August was hell week (I’ll get to that in a minute), and the first weekend of November was a trip/quasi-vacation to the DC area.

Now, I did keep to my promise of No Amazon, No Wal-Mart, No Home Depot. Technically, I didn’t buy from Target, either, especially during the boycott organized by the Black community at the start of the year. I have to add “technically” because in October-ish, a very kind lady from the UU church I attend helped get me a new slow cooker and a Ninja toaster oven (because my actual oven in this apartment is doing *something* that makes the alarms go off any time I cook or bake over 400 degrees).

Still, I didn’t buy from major corporations (except Kroger or Michaels sometimes). If I had to buy anything, I thrifted, traded, found mutual aid, and found local stores.

So What Was the Hell Week?

So, long story short – my younger sibling (and co-creator of Seeing Him and An Ignorance of Romance) moved in with me in January. We moved apartments in May/June. And then they moved fully out in August. During this time, and especially during the move-out period in August, they became the roommate from hell. Folks who have been on my newsletter since July know what happened. But the TL;DR of it is that this sibling needs some fucking intervention and it can’t be from me, because I’m tired of being the savings account of a borderline personality patient who treats animals like a pair of pants to be replaced when they die, and drops everyone and everything as soon as a boy comes into their life.

Part of the reason I even did the No-Buy Year was because I knew, going into the year, that this sibling would be living with me, and they have no savings whatsoever. They’re in the process of trying to file for bankruptcy for a second time (they failed the first time because the paperwork wasn’t in order).

But since September, I’ve been living on my own, and trying to rebuild my savings. On top of that, I do not like this apartment complex I was forced to move to. We only moved here because of my sibling’s garbage credit score, and they moved out within 3 months of signing the lease. As soon as this lease is out this upcoming May, I’m moving again. Which means I have to build up savings again.

My Goal For Next Year

I’m going through YearCompass, which helps to reflect on the year just lived and plan for the year coming ahead. I did my reflection for 2025, and if you thought what I wrote above was rough, that was just half of the year. It doesn’t cover:

  • losing a roommate of 4 years.
  • losing a beloved pet of 18 and a half years.
  • losing a home I lived in for 2 years.
  • having to pay over $2,000 to the state of West Virginia (a long story).
  • breaking contact with both of my siblings (which is a story I will *not* get into publicly).
  • one of my books under threat of getting banned (that’s detailed in this post).

But also that did not cover:

There were also more personal wins, but those wins are for my private life.

I’m still meditating on my goals for 2026, but the biggest one is: save back as much money as possible. I want to rebuild from this past year, and I want to move to a better apartment with better management than the people at this current complex.

Everything else? I will write about at the start of 2026.

I don’t know about you, but I’m taking a break for the rest of the year. That means, until January 2026:

  • no blog posts.
  • no Member newsletters.
  • no email newsletters.
  • and after tomorrow’s livestream, no YouTube *anything*.

The Legend of Jamie Roberts will still update on Wednesdays, and Vanita and the Demon King will still update on Fridays.

With all of that said, it’s time for the break to start. I hope you also take some time for yourself during this season.

Thanks for reading.

You. Are. Awesome.

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No Watching YouTube for 31 Days

I’m going to try a personal challenge – no watching YouTube for the next 31 days.

That’s right. For the month of May, I’m going to make the effort to NOT watch YouTube. (This likely means no new YouTube videos on my channel, either. Apologies in advance to my YouTube channel subscribers. I will, however, be doing workshops with the Cartoonist Co-op as part of Nib and Ink Fest, and those workshops will be up on their YouTube channel. I’ll post links to those workshops in the next few days.)

“But WHY?” You might ask. “YouTube is everywhere! How can you possibly do no YouTube for the month of May?!”

So, before I get into the How, let me tell you the Why.

Why #1 – May is a BUSY month for me.

I mentioned the workshops I’m doing with the Cartoonist Co-op as part of Nib and Ink Fest. I will also be packing up and preparing to move to a new apartment before the end of the month.

“You could just put YouTube on in the background – “

No. That’s part of my next Why.

Why #2 – YouTube is More Distraction Than Helpful.

I need to keep my hands busy, usually with making comics and art, or packing my apartment up for the move. I can’t be distracted with shiny visuals. Also, I have caught myself – multiple times – scrolling YouTube to try to find *something* to turn on, but realizing that nothing is catching my interest.

This leads me to…

Why #3 – YouTube isn’t FUN anymore.

collage of my frustrations with YouTube as a platform

I made this collage yesterday to make art out of my frustration with YouTube. Because YouTube used to be fun.

Used to be.

Now, because of its algorithms prioritizing the same content delivered in roughly 1700 different ways (seriously, HOW MANY videos are there talking about “productivity” or “things I do to stop doomscrolling” – on a platform formulated for doomscrolling). There’s also the sponsors who are 99% of the time scams, the ads, and my once-favorite YouTube creators no longer being favorites…

Well, it’s time that I take a break from YouTube.

So, HOW am I not going to watch YouTube?

How #1 – the Unhook extension.

The Unhook extension built for Firefox has commands for when you *do* end up on YouTube. Unhook does things like turning off Shorts, bringing you to your subscription feed instead of the front page, turning off the comments section, and other quality of life fixes.

I’m leaving this extension on in case I have a moment of weakness and end up on YouTube. That way, Unhook makes sure I only see what’s in my subscription feed. Which, right now, is looking slim, since I unsubscribed from a lot of people who stopped being fun for me to watch.

How #2 – audiobooks.

I have a long-ass TBR list of audiobooks on hoopla, an app available from my public library. It’s basically free Audible (so stop paying for Audible. You literally get hoopla and Libby – two audiobook apps – free thanks to your tax dollars). So instead of turning on YouTube, I’ll turn on an audiobook.

OR, I’ll turn on…

How #3 – podcasts.

This one might be trickier for me, as I’m trying to cut down on the number of apps on my phone. Podcast apps are freaking storage hogs. Also, as it turns out, a lot of podcasts I listen to don’t have episodes available on their websites. Their websites are basically place holders to tell people, “Listen to us on Spotify!” Which does nothing to help me.

Still, some podcasts have their episodes on their websites, and those will be super helpful this month. I also have some of my favorite episodes downloaded onto my laptop, which I don’t mind listening to The Dollop talking about the 1904 New York to Paris Car Race for the 17th time.

How #4 – music.

Y’all. My music playlist on my hard drive is entirely too big and I don’t play it enough. I gotta turn on some tunes!

Also, my library offers an app called Freegal, where you can download 5 songs a month – for free – that you can keep forever on your devices. Freegal’s music library is a little tricksy to navigate, and they don’t have everything. Still, I like that they have some of my favorite bands on there.

If Freegal’s not your speed, hoopla also has music. Hoopla has a lot of songs that Freegal does not, like Chapelle Roan.

So here’s something I’d love to hear from you: how do you listen to podcasts? Let me know in the comments, because I really want to listen to more podcasts!

That’s all for now. Thank you for reading!

You. Are. Awesome.

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My 2025 Challenge: The No-Buy Year

I don’t think it’s too soon to make New Year’s Resolutions. To that end, I have decided that my 2025 challenge is: The No-Buy Year.

What’s the No-Buy Challenge?

It actually depends on who you talk to. When I told my younger sibling I wanted to do a No-Buy Year, they said, “Wait, aren’t the no-buy challenges where you buy absolutely nothing? I know people have done it for a week or a month. But a YEAR?”

That’s not actually the variation of this challenge I’m doing.

How I see it, there are two types of no-buy challenges: the first is where you buy nothing. Not even food. People prepare for this challenge by buying in bulk beforehand. These types of challenges are for short-term windows, usually a week or a month.

I’m actually doing a different variant, one I found out about through The Financial Diet. In this variation of the No-Buy challenge, you don’t buy anything UNLESS you run out of it. So things like shampoo, soap, food, and toilet paper are exempt.

Why Do a No-Buy Challenge?

Whether you do the short-term or the long-term variation, there are a lot of reasons to do this challenge. Here are my own reasons for doing it.

1 – Fuck the Billionaires, That’s Why.

Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk can go fuck themselves. I’m not giving them my money if I can avoid it. Even the billionaire who ran Patagonia is not exempt – he just forfeited ownership of the company because he didn’t want to pay taxes. Adam Conover has a whole video breaking this down.

I am aware that billionaires own a lot of companies and have their fingers in a lot of places. I am aware that Jeff Bezos owns Whole Foods, for example. Even grocery stores have been shown to price gouge the consumer so that they can then pocket the difference and enrich their corporate owners. 

Personally, I’m done with that shit. So I’m not spending my money at places the billionaires own as much as I can avoid them.

When it comes to groceries, I have a game plan in mind. I am lucky enough to live in a place where there are plentiful farmers markets and local grocers still serving their neighborhoods. Places like Walt Churchill’s (which is employee-owned) and Kazmaiers are within reach, and they work with local farmers and suppliers as much as possible. I want to support those businesses, not Kroger, a place talking about doing “dynamic pricing” to further price-gouge customers, just specific times of the day.

Why enrich the billionaires when I can shop local instead? That’s one reason. The others?

2 – I’m a broke as fuck self-employed person, and people depend on me.

I have been a full-time self-employed person since July of 2023. There was a very brief window where I worked at a dollar store for a month. But then the register nearly caught on fire and poor management made me leave within 4 weeks of working there. Aside from that, I have been fully self-employed, working out of my studio. 

There will be months where I will have big windfalls. Those months, I have to squirrel away as much money as I can, because there are other months that are very lean. 

So part of this no-buy challenge is simple: I barely have any fun spending money even on a good month. Maybe once every four months I have a day to splurge $40 at Goodwill and that’s it, for the most part. But even after those splurges, there is that sense of guilt in me. Because I know that I could tuck that money away for a rainy day, for myself or for someone else.

(I am also aware that I have a lot of things sitting in my closet, waiting to be used, worn, crafted with, or read. But that is for a later bullet point.)

I have also, unfortunately, become something of a safety net for some of the people around me, especially friends and family members. I need to make sure that I have funds set aside for them, because they are not in a place where they can easily save money. 

Also, I have three cats dependent on me for care. And one of them is very elderly. I need to make sure that I have the funds set aside for any veterinary bills that pop up.

an elderly gray cat sleeps peacefully in the photographer's lap.

There have been times this year where funds were very tight, because something frivolous came up and sucked away the funding I could have used for something else. I want to get better about managing my resources so that I can take care of myself and the people and pets who rely on me.

3 – I have a lot of stuff in my apartment that needs to be used. 

As I am writing this, I have so much yarn. I also have a lot, A LOT, of scrap fabric begging to be used for quilting projects. And a lot of paint, and clay, and paper, and…

Let’s just say I should not be buying any new toys because I have plenty to work with here at home. 

I also have a lot of thread, and the know-how to mend things that tear. So I don’t need to buy new clothes, because I know how to repair the clothes I currently have. I also have the means to make new clothes if I wanted.

There are also a lot of books in my personal collection that need to be read that I have not gotten to yet. This is actually a good segue to…

4 – I have community resources, such as public libraries, at my disposal.

Don’t tell anyone, but I have library cards with two separate library systems. 

This actually works to my benefit, because if one library does not have a particular resource I’m looking for, the other one does. For example, I know one library system has small business resources, job fairs, and a truly massive DVD collection. The other library has tools available for rent, such as wifi routers, tents, hammers, and even some power tools.

For 2025, I want to engage with my library resources as much as I possibly can. Not only are they free or mostly free, they are already supported by the community. Plus, the more the community uses those resources, the more funding the libraries can ask for.

Which is VERY VITAL in the age of book bans, and will be even more important for 2025, if conservatives get their way. 

Also, Toledo has fantastic metro parks, and I want to go to them more often. Toledo has been making a lot of effort to be more bike-friendly, and I want to support that.

5 – My communities have free stuff all the freaking time.

Both libraries that I am a part of host music concerts, and one of them does so throughout the year. There are also festivals, parks, and even the Toledo Art Museum is free to attend.

In short, I will not be at a loss for things to do with a no-buy year.

So What Will Make This Hard?

Ok, real talk: I love my friends. I care about them deeply. And they also love spending money. So I have to be very clear and explicit about this challenge with them. I imagine some of them will be understanding, but others may have a very hard time wrapping their head around this.

I’m not going to ask them to participate with me. A no-buy challenge is a very personal one to tackle. People do these challenges for different reasons, and I’ve already outlined the reasons I have for doing it. 

I also need to reconcile doing a no-buy challenge while also running a Ko-fi page and possibly some KickStarter campaigns in 2025. That said, part of doing a no-buy challenge is to prepare for this feasible reality: that funds raised through crowdfunding will shrink next year. I imagine I’m not the only one tightening up my wallet in 2025, so I have to be prepared as much as I can. 

What About Mutual Aid?

I’m part of a lot of artist and cartoonist servers, with dedicated channels where artists can ask for mutual aid. These are people asking for short-term funds to help them meet immediate bills, so that they don’t starve or have their electricity shut off, etc.

While thinking about this challenge, I have waffled back and forth about whether to have mutual aid be an exception, or part of the no-buy rule.

And honestly, I think it just comes down to the moment – if I have the funds to help somebody immediately, I want to do so. 

Part of the reason I want to do the no-buy challenge is to have the resources available to help not just myself, but the people around me. (See Point 2 above.)

Really, for me, the no-buy challenge comes down to engaging less with corporatization, neoliberalism, and capitalism, and more with community, whether it’s the people around me or the virtual communities I’ve joined. And part of being in a community is being able to share resources with people when they need it.

So there we go! This is longer than my usual blog posts, so thanks for hanging in there with me! Usually I just draw webcomics, like The Legend of Jamie Roberts, which you can read for free on the official site, or get remastered pages (with bonus content) when you get physical copies of the comic.

And if you want to stay in touch, be sure to sign up for my email newsletter. I’d like to check in throughout 2025 to let you know how the no-buy challenge is going.

That’s all for now. Thank you for reading!

You. Are. Awesome.

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Let’s Tour My Punk Clothes and Jewelry That I Made

Let this genderqueer punk take you on a closet journey through these clothes and jewelry I made myself. Hopefully, you find this inspiring for your DIY projects! Let me know in the comments what kind of things you’re working on – I’d love to hear about it!

Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and join my email newsletter so you can keep up with new stuff.

Or you can read my genderqueer webcomic, The Legend of Jamie Roberts, if you like pirates, dragons, magic, and adventure!

You can also check out my other videos here, or sign up to get behind-the-scenes sneak peeks at upcoming comics and projects by joining the Fan Clubs (either here or on Ko-Fi).

That’s all for now. Thank you for watching!

You. Are. Awesome.

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2023 – What A Year!

two cats look up sleepily at the viewer. One is a gray older cat, the other is a younger tabby kitten. The tabby is blanketed by a purple crochet blanket

What a year 2023 has been! But I’m glad it’s over.

A lot happened this year, so let’s get into what we made happen together. That’s right, your support helped make these things possible…

4 Successful Crowdfunding Campaigns!

In 2023, we raised funding for Vanita and the Demon King; The Legend of Jamie Roberts, volume 2; BE NOT APURRED Keychains; and Mr. Dino and Friends Keychains! We also had a Holiday Pop-Up Shop that raised $493 in support of Ohio-based indie creators.

I’m also including Ko-fi and Fan Club memberships here. While membership did shrink a bit, we still held together and made a lot of exclusive rewards.

Journey of the Mystery Won 3rd Place in the 24-Hour Comics Challenge!

This happened in January of 2023 but is still worth mentioning. The 24-Hour Comics Challenge, hosted by The Comic Book Jamboree, was INTENSE and had over 15 artists from around the world participate! And my comic, Journey of the Mystery, won 3rd place!

(By the way, you can download the coloring book version of this comic by checking it out on Ko-fi).

I Got A Short Story in an Iron Circus Comic Anthology!

I got accepted in Failure to Launch, a comics anthology from Iron Circus Comix. The anthology is all about ideas of the future that never panned out. 

The short story I made is called Ninit’i, or The End, and is a story told in two lines: one line follows my class trip into Navajo Nation, the other follows the Christian extremist panic around the Harold Camping Doomsday Proclamation.

The release of the anthology did get a bit delayed but should come out in print in spring of 2024. More details are on the Iron Circus website.

I Quit My 9 to 5 Job!

(Technically it was a 7 to 3:30 job but it still sucked).

Thanks to support from readers like you, I was able to leave a toxic office job. 

It took several months to unpack a lot of the crap from there, and it made me realize that my neurodivergent, genderqueer butt is too radical for “traditional” work. Also, half of my wages were taken by the temp agency that put me there and they wouldn’t let me leave because they “had no other work openings.”

Hot tip: don’t work with a temp agency.

Excuse me, I’m still very salty about this experience. On a more positive note…

I Moved To A New Apartment, Sold My Car, and Paid Off My Debts!

I sold my car for a lot of reasons – for one, I’m fortunate enough that my roommate and I moved to a new neighborhood that’s got a LOT within comfortable walking and biking distance from our home. We also sit on a major bus route in the city of Toledo, (and the bus is amenable to bikes like mine), so I can get wherever I want to throughout the city. We also have an Amtrak and bus station that I can get to in 30 minutes by city bus, so I can connect to a LOT of major cities across the US by those means. (Like, during SPX weekend I went by train and Metro everywhere).

Also, I was REALLY FREAKING TIRED of spending money that I didn’t have to repair a hunk of metal on wheels that already lost a large chunk of its value when I drove it off the lot back in 2019. And I was tired of my money being sent off to car companies and oil companies that don’t have the people’s best interest at heart.

So I sold my car and used that money to pay off debt, including my remaining student loans and the debt I accrued on car repairs.

In the end, I traveled further AFTER selling my car. Seriously, after the car sale, I went to DC (for work) AND Florida (for visiting family. It’s fine, I can pass as a woman. No one in Florida but mom knew, wink wink).

The Legend of Jamie Roberts, Volume 2 Came to Print!

It got mentioned up top, but I’m SO happy that y’all love this genderqueer pirate adventure so hecking much. Not to get too into the numbers, but The Legend of Jamie Roberts has now raised more in crowdfunding support than Validation did. And The Legend is still ongoing!

2023 was a VERY packed year for Fantasyville Productions, yo. For 2024, I want to keep building on what’s working and keep making comics, especially The Legend of Jamie Roberts. That story has a LOT to share in 2024 and I can’t wait to get into it with you.

Also in 2024, I want to do new things, like offer free downloads for my newsletter peeps. The first downloads are available this Friday, so sign up for free to get it when it’s ready.

Keep an eye on that newsletter, too, because I’m announcing more crowdfunding campaigns for 2024 – including one coming soon for CATS: A Sketchbook!

That’s all for now. Thank you for your support! You helped make all of this happen.

You. Are. Awesome.