I could just not tell you what I read/watched in 2023, but I already had a bunch of this drafted and it never made it to publication, so I’m posting two years worth of things I read and watched and listened to. This has turned into a straight up list and it is not comprehensive. Hopefully in 2025 I can just give you a review of the top handful that stuck with me.
Category Archives: Personal
Work and Life Review 2024
Nothing motivates me more than opening this blog and seeing it’s been a year since I posted anything. This is pretty alarming. I’ve thought of so many things I wanted to write and apparently never brought any of them here. I’ll add it to my New Year’s Resolution to write here more next year, even if it’s only a few times. I’ve got some fun adventures planned so some journalling will probably be good for me.
I do always post around this time of year while I consolidate my thoughts on the year prior and shift my focus to the one ahead. I’m probably not the only one who sees the hot steaming pile of bullshit that lies ahead in 2025, but the only way out is through. I have to be strong and thrive and help to get us through until the next fight. I know it’s easier said than done, but the only way to guarantee the bad guys win is for the good guys to give up. So don’t give up.
So What Did You Do This Year, Dawn?
According to my invoices, I worked on 69 books! It may be off and I did tweak the number slightly to make sure it was a funny one, but I definitely worked on 69 books, and some pieces only published online. Last year I evidently worked on 45.
Work Credits for 2023
I really feel like, when it came to work, I was all over the place this year. That said, proofreading and copy editing appears to be a good fit for me, so I imagine I’ll cultivate that into growth in 2024. Here’s hoping I keep up with work during a deluge of layoffs and downsizing all over the place.
Last year’s list was more impressive thanks to being a full-timer for half the year, but trust me when I say this year’s list it more happy and healthy. 2024 will be about learning for real how much I need to get by, and seizing my free time for me. Work smarter, not harder!
[ROUNDUP] February, March, and April/May to Come
I hope you’re all doing well <3
I’ve been working on a few things and it’s tough because a lot of them are just behind the curtain and I can’t show them to you for a little while, but I’m very very excited for the moment when I can.
February
I feel like February was a lot of working on things that will be due to come out soon, and nothing that I can actually show off. I drew some stuff that I posted on social media and I will collect to post here at a later time! I would like to have all my fandom art in a pile, isolated for convenience.
March
Young Lady Albert is Courting Disaster Volume 2 is complete, and you can now buy the ebook!
Young Lady Albert is Courting Disaster Volume 3 is now being serialized!
I started taking driving lessons!
Beloved friend of the show Ashley Lauren Rogers has a play available for purchase at Next Stage Press. Check out and pick up Chasing the Ghost here! Ashley also has her own Patreon here!
Another beloved friend of the show, Kai, has been working hard on their comic, Ukiyo! They have a Patreon as well where you can support them, here!
April
Fujoshi Guide to Web Development Kickstarter launched. I helped!
Finding God in No Man’s Land—Christian Influence in Trigun: Essay posted on Easter 2023! Because I thought it was funny. I’ll be writing up a few elements that I didn’t get to work into the essay itself for Patreon that I also hope to make available on ko-fi.
More stuff to come?? Maybe??
May
Hideo Kojima’s Memes and Torquil Campbell’s DNA – Artists on Art as Genetics: Coming out on Unwinnable Exploits on May 1st. Might only be available for subscribers right away, so keep your eyes peeled. I’ll post it as soon as I see it!
Also on May 1st, playerprophet friend and supporter Mirth Turtle is having a very special livestream. Details to come.
I have another Author Spotlight Interview coming out soon with Nightmare Magazine. I believe it’s out in May but it could be June. They don’t tell me these things (but I also don’t ask).
I’ve signed up for a course to learn about making TTRPGs late in May: Designing Games that Matter with Avery Alder. I wanted to go last year, but full-time work left me very little room for fun. Looking forward to it this time! I bet I’ll have some fun things to share afterward. :)
I also now have a discord server that you can join with extra perks for patrons!
Also I’ll probably be working on a Trigun doujinshi (as short as possible) because the fandom is on fire and I have more stuff I want to say. Now’s as good a time as any, right?
20 Stories that Changed Me in 2022
This is the last thing I write about 2022 I hope.
For Christmas I asked for and received (thanks to my mom and brother Jeff, thanks guys) Hideo Kojima’s The Creative Gene. The book (so far) is mostly Kojima’s account of stories that have influenced him, why they mattered to him, and sometimes how we can see their effects in his work.
I keep a yearly planner — a hobonichi techo — which has a “my 100” list in the back where you can chronicle 100 things. I never knew what to do with it, but in 2022 I kept a chronicle of media I consumed, whether I liked them or not, or other special memories of new places or things. So for the first time I had a reliable, localized collection of the things I read/watched/saw that were new to me. After starting The Creative Gene I thought it might be nice to share with you, like he shared with me, the things that I believe I learned something from that will help me go into the future.
So here are 20 of the stories that changed me in 2022, in no particular order.
2022 List of Credits
Lots of people in the manga industry like to post collections of the year’s work, but it’s difficult when you do proofreading because the list gets pretty massive pretty quickly.
Here’s all the stuff I worked on this year, and it’s probably not comprehensive because it’s just based on what I wrote down in my planner. I’ve been thinking it would be good to collect all the titles I’ve worked on as a reference just for job searching, so this is just a start. This also doesn’t include volumes of series that I started working on in previous years.
Personal Post: 2022 Was the Worst Year of 2020 to Date
With the ongoing collapse of Twitter which they now say will soon have a character limit of 4000, I decided to bite the bullet and just use blogs as originally intended. Social media is for shitposting and blogging is for things I care to commit to history so I hope to update this blog with a lot of random nonsense from now on, some of which will be under lock and key via Patreon integration, so if you’re interested in having more of a conversation about me and my content, please find me there again.
I think I made a post here about moving to Gumroad and right after that Gumroad revealed that they’re also full of twats and since lots of people use Patreon (including myself, to funnel cash to people I like) I might as well stick with the same twats that everyone else is affiliated with. My Patreon will be reactivated at the end of December. Here’s my Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/playerprophet
This blog post is a bummer so far but I promise I’m doing well, I just hate living in late capitalism.
To brighten things up, here’s a photo of my current foster cat, Scruffy McFluffers (adoption pending). Maybe I’ll make a big blog post about him soon. And perhaps my other fosters?
I am no longer working at Seven Seas so I have retreated to freelance work. This is fine. Now I have the time to get back to the projects I’ve abandoned since 2020, so your support on Patreon and elsewhere would be appreciated. I’m hoping to cut back on the number of contracts I’m juggling for January in order to write a novel (but please do contact me about work opportunities). When I got a full-time job in 2020 I had several ambitions I was trying to fulfill, and one of them was to spend that November working on this novel for NaNoWriMo. Instead, I got a job, and had no time for the novel. I feel like it would be better if I took the summer to slack off and write instead, but there are a few things in the world that seem to be telling me it’s a good time, so I’m going to get started in the new year. I’ll tell you all about it soon… and probably on Patreon first!
I’m looking forward to the holidays and ringing out this crappy year. For me it’s been a lot of disappointments and loss and stress, but a lot of learning too. I think we can ring in 2023 on a better note with blogs, Patreon, and really gay novels. Thank you all for being here. It means a lot.
Death Stranding, and a little Healing
This piece was featured in a December 1st 2019 post on Critical Distance. [link]
Content Warning: This post contains spoilers for the end of Death Stranding, and conversations about my personal experiences with abuse, neglect, and daddy issues. This is some very personal crap that does little by way of analysis or critique of the story.
Continue reading6 Tips to Using a Planner for your Mental Health
Hello, I’m Dawn and I’ve been battling my own mental health as far back as I can remember. I struggle to this day with depression and anxiety.
I’ve kept a journal off and on for much of my life. I decided in 2018 to keep one to track my days, so I could stop beating myself up about how much I didn’t do. A few months in, I used it for exactly that, and it worked, pulling me out of a downward spiral of self-hate. In my depressed haze I was discrediting how hard I was working, and looking back in time, I was grateful for what I did manage to do.
Depending on your particular hangups, my routine might not work for you, but I think it could help others. I recommend that you use a daily log, be it a spreadsheet, phone calendar, or physical day planner. Make sure it has all 365 days a year. Other than that, you can use whatever you please. I use a Hobonichi Techo because it had a cool Earthbound jacket, and getting something expensive held me hostage to make use of it.
Continue readingI’m Not Reviewing Love on the Peacock Express!
I’m not going to be reviewing this great, free game about dating moms and solving mysteries on a train, because I helped to write it! I’m super proud of this and the game as a whole. Thank you to everyone who is playing it, and everyone who helped to make it. I think we did a great job. <3
Please check it out here: https://trainmilfsgame.itch.io/love-on-the-peacock-express