Good morning!

AHHHHH long post, gross, but I felt the need to get some feels off my chest. (Skip to the bold text at the bottom to avoid long story times LOL)

I had a little cry a couple nights ago, and had to think about how I wanted to go about this, but I just wanted to say a big thank you.

As we ring closer to 2025, I’m reminded that I started this Patreon January 1st of 2023. I was in such a dark place, my mom and I were at odds and I had a partner who moved in with us, and was just inflating the situation every day with bad vibes.

It was a very fast-bandaid-rip process of my mom letting me know that she didn’t want to continue her lease where we were, and she planned to move provinces. I am very tired of provincial moves, and opted to move in with my partner at the time. (This was a mistake but we’ll get there, 🐻 with me LMAO)

It is purely because of you all that I was able to keep myself afloat through mid 2022-2023. I was so scared to live without my mom LOL, in a weird way you guys kind of watched me grow up. I was just about to turn 20 when I started this Patreon, and now the gap is closing between me and 22, which is insane to think since high school me definitely did not think we’d make it to seeing 2025, it doesn’t even feel like a real number 💀 my point being, every patron on here has contributed to my last couple years of educating myself on film and camera work, makeup, wardrobe, etc etc. The fact that I was able to move out of my mom’s apartment at all is with huge thanks to all of you.

Things changed very fast in 2023 for me. The partnership I was in drained a lot of my progress on healing traumas, and put me back some paces with the parts of me that allowed others to cross my boundaries. Being alone with someone is often different than it is when you have a parent between you in arguments. It ended messy, and since August ish of 2023, I have been in a pretty deep depression, I almost can’t sleep enough, my night terrors came back, I ended up in the hospital in Nov. with complications from medications and a pretty severe burnout, and I’m struggling a lot to regain a sense of routine living alone.

My lease with my ex roommate ended in June of this year, to which I moved into a very small (like 7.5-8ft ceilings, no windows, prison! love it), basement apartment with one bedroom and no dishwasher, a full family of mean and loud people upstairs, no yard for Vander to use in, the list goes on. this move happened fast because I couldn’t stand to pay another month of 2k rent by myself (which I had done all of 2023 due to my ex roommate refusing to take a steady job for a year and a half), but that meant I had no time to find a place I really liked. I just needed to not be without a home.

Cue the last 6 or so months,

my life has just been completely flipped upside down. I feel like a bug in a jar, being shaken up and having my glass tapped. In that weird way that artists are, it has reignited my love for this work and is motivating me to put my ducks in their rows and get back to consistent posts and enjoyment of my work, but that doesn’t come without the cost of being fatigued physically and emotionally majority of the time, and being haunted by the feelings of grief over the person I was in 2021-mid 2022.

As I said on my Snapchat story for the couple of patrons who are still on my little story, there’s a distinct (and as far as I can personally see it, quite evident) difference in my personality both in and out of cosplay from 2021-2022 and 2023-now. I’ve grown very tired, and been through a lot of draining experiences. I lost a lot of weight by the end of 2023, which I’m only just starting to regain.

It’s new, but I’m learning to use the energy that I usually give away, and give it to myself to exist sometimes. A lot of this job is being available, having communication in comment sections/stories/broascast channels, the 3-posts-per-day algorithm on IG/TT (+ my schedule for Patreon, + consistent streams), addressing hate or alternatively, having to choose not to say anything and to take it when people are diminishing my existence let along my cosplays, consistently have new themes/trending content on my page, people reposting my pay wall content for free even though it’s clear that this is how I survive + having to decide that I need police involved in tracking this person and the getting other people who’ve made AI images of me taken down and possibly charged with property infringement, etc etc etc.

it’s been an interesting and bothersome challenge to separate all of that from my daily life. To not give all of my energy to people-pleasing those around me, or people pleasing those who will always try and tear me down. It’s not been long, but I am starting to redirect that energy, and I’m learning to focus it on myself now and again. The process is gonna be a bitch, but I’m going to keep trying.

I share this “insight into my feels” shit in the hopes of being more human with you all. I’ve had to stay closed off for a few months while I came down from a lot of stress, but I don’t like the idea of being just a person on a screen. You all are a big part of my life, and I’m so grateful to get to have human experiences with all of you. Especially when I get to meet you guys at cons or events, I really hope to get to more in the coming years.

But—to finally get to my point—it’s almost the 2 year anniversary of me being on Patreon. It’s been a long trial and error process, and it feels like this year wasn’t even real it just flew past with insane ups and downs, plot twists everywhere, two moves, 31 days of streaming, the lady upstairs screaming at her kid all day every day in that old apartment, AGCK💀 with all my cards laid out here, and a big old fox-likes-to-over-explain explanation of why I’ve been down in recent months, I wanted to say a massive thank you.

Thank you for being here and allowing me to make this content for you guys, thank you for enjoying the cosplays I do, for giving me space to be creative and share in all of our love for video games, music, and other media.

I am so excited for this year, I’ve got some events that I’m looking forward to attending, but mostly I’m just looking forward to being stabilized in the next couple months, I really missed loving what I do.

Leaving my old studio behind to move into a basement under a screaming household, stripped a lot of the joy from my days. 31 days of streaming was incredibly hard on my mental state, but cosplaying also became a task, rather than something I enjoyed. I felt obligated to post consistently, but I also had absolutely no room for myself in the apartment, let alone a studio that took up 2 rooms in my last one💀 I’m just so excited to finally be loving this again. Cad Bane, new arcane, Vox?? Fuck man I’m having a blast. And I can’t wait to share what’s coming in this new year✨

One more time before I schedule this, thank you. I can’t say it enough. Thank you for being here, for having fun with me, and especially thank you to everyone who leaves kind and uplifting comments, or says good morning back to these silly little dailies. I love building community with you all 🫂 I appreciate you so much, and let’s get into this new year with heads high and cool shit on the horizon 🗣️