Category: News

Hey all, I’m going to launch a kickstarter in February. I got a preview page up for people to sign up to be notified at launch. It is for the 5th book in The City Between series, Shards of Reflection. 

January is gonna be pretty quiet while I get the kickstarter ready and do some usual new year stuff. So I’m gonna do Saturday afternoon movie my discord. Click here to join. We’re watching these at 11 am pst. 

• Jan 10th – This is Spinal Tap
• Jan 17th – Stand By Me
• Jan 24th – When Harry Met Sally
• Jan 31st – Akira

And as usual, I’ll be streaming. My PS5 was getting repaired, so I didn’t do my Christmas charity stream. So I’m leaving the charity donation bar up all this month to make up for it. 

• Tuesday at 7pm – 10pm PST – Art times
• Wednesday at 7pm – 9pm PST – Art times
• Sunday at 8pm – 10pm PST – Baldur’s Gate 3

Join me on my twitch!

I didn’t get a lot done last month because I spent a lot of it dealing with a sinus infection. I’m still a bit stuffy, but I’m mostly better. With the new year, I’m gonna focus on writing the next story of The City Between. Glass Diamonds is about half way done. The next one is called Brittle Beast. It is a follow up to The Better to Find You With. Sina and Jeff are looking into a cryptid. Here’s some concept art for the cryptid.

I mentioned last month I started doing yoga and pilates. The past few years, I’ve been slowly making progress to get to my goal of being able to do the One Punch Man work out: 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, 100 squats, and run 10k. I can do the squats and I’m pretty close to 100 sit ups. I’m gonna try to get to 100 sit ups then focus on the running part. So wish me luck on my 2026 goal. I hope you all can hit any 2026 goals you have. 

Last month’s Saturday movies started with Amadeus. It was a movie that I had heard a lot of good things about and it definitely lived up to the hype. F. Murray Abraham does such a good job displaying Salieri’s hatred and jealousy of Mozart. I liked also the contrast between Salieri being able to play the political game and make work to their patron’s taste and Mozart being more creative but unable think about how he is being perceived or the consequences of his actions. 

I followed it up with Northman. Before I watched, all I knew about Northman was who the director was and that it was based off the legend that inspired Hamlet. It was a very beautiful. It touches on how cycles of violence wipe out whole families. While I over all liked it, it mostly made me want to reread/catch up on Vinland Saga. 

And I did just that. Vinland Saga ended recently and I really loved what I had read before. If you haven’t read it, it with the main character, Thorfinn, on a more standard revenge motive. But it quickly became one of my favorite comics when it started its second part when for the first time in 10 years Thorfinn doesn’t have revenge driving him. He is adrift without such a strong goal. It turns the story to a mediation on violence and how one can seek redemption. It also examines how cultural values affect the reasons for violence. The story is about vikings during just before and during the reign of King Canute. Thorfinn wonders if the promise of Valhalla or Norse culture is especially violent. The art is just gorgeous and has a lot of powerful shots. I highly recommend people give it a read.  

For something lighter, I checked out the start of Fallout Season 2. I mostly liked the first season. It was a good mix of humor and action. My main complaints were the villain in season 1’s plan didn’t really make sense. The others are more nitpicks. Like I understand why they wanted to wasteland to not have any established society built because that is easier for a new viewer. But it’s canon with all the games, so I would have liked stuff to build up or moved forward rather than start from zero. Season 2 is off to a good start though. There is a great bit where the brotherhood of steel guys find an alien in a freezer and then get excited about the freezer. Moving to New Vegas stuff is so far a fun ride. 

And last thing I watched in 2025 was Wake Up Dead Man. I overall liked it because I enjoyed Knives Out and Glass Onion. I think Wake Up Dead Man is a better murder mystery than Glass Onion, but Glass Onion and Knives Out had a better message. Basically, in the first two movies, the suspects were both right and left win, so it drives home that wealth has a bond than politics. Everyone except the lead being right wing or indifferent, ends up flattening the story. I did like how it handled religion though, that it is can be used to help or hurt people and that both someone’s faith or lack of faith should be respected (as long as it’s not hurting people).

Thank you all for your support. I really appreciate it.