01: Be Kind to Myself.

This year, I want to show myself more patience and grace. Last year, I fell a lot to my chronic conditions and even had to go in for surgery after a cancer scare. And yet, at the exact same time, I held myself to such impossible standards that I was ultimately very hard on myself for not accomplishing the goals I wanted to. How can someone suffering from chronic fatigue, a thyroid tumor, and a cocktail of mental and emotional debuffs accomplish such huge, [the opposite of actionable] goals? If I can’t even stay up for more than a few hours at

02: Support My Fellow Artists!

I want to engage with and support my fellow artists as I continue my own journey. I noticed a large number of my fellow creatives feeling discouraged, especially in the face of greedy corporations and their vehement support and use of genAI. I couldn’t help but notice that I shared a lot of those same sentiments, along with the world being—at the risk of this being an understatement—as hostile and scary as it is. In fact, there’s a video by Jacadamia I watched that pretty much nailed the intense feelings and thoughts I was having through the year. Give it a watch here:

After visiting a few panels and meetups at MAGFEST this year, it really hit home just how important community is in a world like what we’re all facing today. So, all that being said, one of my goals is to support my art friends the best I can–whether it’s consuming their art, sharing it with others, yapping about it, or some distinct combination of the three. I mean–that was the whole reason I started the OH! Comic Treats show in the first place!
Community.

At the end of the day, that sense of support, of trust and knowing that your fellow community members have your back is something that rings home for me. Even in the improv panel at MAG, they emphasized the importance of that mindset, and it lit a fire in me. I want to reach out, meet new friends (artists and art enjoyers alike) and enrich my life as an extrovert who needs to recharge her social battery every now and again. I also want to build a community of my own, so I’ve started a mailing list for anyone who wants to get to know me better (and see my cats sometimes). You can sign up for that here!

03: Get the TwistedFates Community Up and Running!

Okay—I know this one is a bit selfish on my end. But I’ve been seriously thinking about ways to garner a following of people who care about TwistedFates and will happily share the projects with others and, if they happen to have a little extra change or something, support the project financially. I mean, I’m staring at a $611.64 bill due in November for hosting my websites (including this one) and it’s just…LEERING DOWN ON ME. This is the wiki, the official site, orribu.co (this site) and….

The most important part, of course, is that I want to build a community that’s super excited about this thing I’m doing. I’m going to be doing research on just how to do that. Oh–speaking of learning…

04: Learn/Harness A New Skill

I am a lady who wears many…many hats. So there are a lot of skills I have that need more development or a refresh. Just to name some off the top of my head, I’m still very much like a beginner coder and voiceover artist. I have a slightly firmer grasp on 3D art, and game development as a whole goes over my head from the sheer places and resources available, so I haven’t the foggiest idea where to start! And…I did try a game jam. I did.

05: FINISH UP EPISODE 1 of TWISTEDFATES: LUCAS!

This probably should have been #4, the more I think about it. I started this project in the middle of last year, and I’d just love to be able to get the first episode out. After talking to an absolute gem of a creative entrepreneur coach (shoutout to Kelsey), I’ve decided that I’m going to make a premium version of the demo that will reward folks willing to support the project. I haven’t nailed the details down just yet, but I’ll be posting about that on TwistedFates.Net.