2025 in Review

It Was the Best of Times; It Was the Worst of Times

I had a far better year than I expected. In fact, I had one of the best years of my life. With that said, this year has also had a lot of stress for me and my family. Beyond my family it’s been a very bad year for many people. In fact, it’s been so bad for some people that I felt unsure about making this post. I guess I feel an amount of survivor’s guilt. I’ll start with the good and end with the bad followed by some of my 2026 plans.

Writing

I completed Fixing the System. I started and completed The Gold Ceiling. I completed a creative writing course at UIS and have published some of the works from it here.

Perhaps writing is a misnomer as a lot of what I did was drawing. My art went from this at the start of the year:

To this at the end of the year:

And that’s just the stuff I’ve published so far. The first pages of Sam Spindle were done after this but won’t be published for a few more weeks. The Sam Spindle work feels far better than what I was doing for The Gold Ceiling.

Worldcon

Almost on a whim I went to my first Worldcon. At Arisia I talked to the people at the Seattle Worldcon booth and after hearing it was taking place in a state that was still welcoming to trans people I decided to go. I have wanted to go in the past, but the timing never worked out before.

I had been to Detcon1, which was the North American Science Fiction and Fantasy convention that only takes place in years when Worldcon is on another continent. I was a speaker at Detcon1, so my expectations were the same. I had not expected to moderate a panel with famous writers like G. Willow Wilson, the creator of Ms. Marvel, Hugo Award winner Ryan North who writes for Fantastic Four, or Jim Zub who writes for Conan the Barbarian. I also didn’t expect to be on a Doctor Who panel with Hugo Award winner Lynne Thomas who I’ve been listening to on the Verity Podcast for years. I also didn’t expect to see some of my favorite authors, Martha Wells and Becky Chambers.

School

I completed another 20 credit hours at UIS towards my degree and maintained my 4.0 GPA. One of my professors said I was the class’s unofficial TA because I noticed some errors in the assignments. Another professor said it was good she didn’t read my work first as she would have probably given lower grades to other students due to how their writing compared.

Substack

At the start of 2025 I only had 6 subscribers and 15 followers. I now have 69 subscribers and 143 followers, including a few paid subscribers. My mother, one of my followers from 2024, shared my content more than anyone else leading to 40 views, <3 Thank you.

1/3rd of my subscribers found me via a MUCH APPRECIATED recommendation from Trans United Fund. If you haven’t visited their substack, please take a moment to do so. They do the very important work of covering news of violence against transgender folks which most media outlets ignore or report inaccurately. Further, if you become a paid subscriber of Trans United Fund your money is used to provide safe housing for the most vulnerable of transgender folks, homeless black trans women. I am personally a paid subscriber of Trans United Fund.

Birthday

I spent my birthday in Chicago with two friends. We ended up reading some of our works to each other on a beach after a nice dinner. I’m pretty sure this is the best birthday I’ve ever had.

Protesting

I went to at least 25 protests this year, that’s more than any other year. Most of the protests were very local with the largest being in Worcester or North Hampton and the smallest being in Grafton on a rainy Thursday afternoon.

Running

I made a new distance record for the century, slightly exceeding the distance of a half marathon. I beat my 5K personal record on purpose and unexpectedly beat my 10k personal record because of how flat Maryland is compared to where I usually run.

Japanese

I’ve made progress, but not as much as I would like. I have improved my reading speed and comprehension. I have also improved my typing and speaking. I prioritize work, school, and family over this. My biggest limitation is how slowly my rate of vocabulary acquisition.

Friendships

I was hoping to deepen some of my friendships this year and potentially make some more friends. While I have made a few friends, I don’t think I’ve been able to deepen any. In fact, I suspect some (or all) people I consider friends just consider me an acquaintance. I knew this would be hard to do, especially with my intention to leave the country in the next few years and being so busy.

Health

I started the year with the flu. Later in the year I had shingles, which was so bad and because it was misdiagnosed twice I started losing vision in my left eye. Fortunately it was caught before it could do any permanent damage, although I do still have a scar.

Immigrant Rights

This feels to me like what has gone the most wrong this year. Having an honor student in the town next door arrested by ICE and having a woman with a valid visa arrested because of some mild comments in a college newspaper are just two local examples. I know many immigrants that feel unsafe and foreigners who don’t want to travel here.

Trans Rights

I was worried that the rights for my non-binary teenager would cause me to need to flee the country in 2025. This is still a possibility in 2026.

Passports of transgender folks have been in limbo. Fortunately there haven’t been any revoked yet.

There are far fewer places teens can get gender affirming care in the US. It has become completely inaccessible in Connecticut. In Boston, Fenway Health has stopped providing it despite being a hospital dedicated to queer patients.

Transgender people are now banned from serving in the US military and intelligence services.

Palestine

Globally this feels like the biggest tragedy of the year. The genocide is horrific. Hundreds of journalists were killed by the IDF.

Iran and US Aid

The president of peace had us bomb Iran. We ended US AID, which has led to a death rate of 88 people per hour! Both of these actions destabilize regions which increase the likelihood of terrorism against us.

What’s Next?

I’m signed up for 9 credits in the spring semester which starts the Monday before MLK weekend. I’m running a silly game about Dictionaries at the end of January and running Flipping Politics at the end of February. I added Fiery Chat to the background information for the second run of Flipping Politics.

The schedule for Arisia isn’t available to the public yet, but I’m scheduled to give a reading and be on a few panels. I haven’t decided what I’ll read yet, though I’m strongly considering Fiery Chat.

I’m a bit more hopeful that it will be safe for us to stay in the US at least until the summer. I already booked travel arrangements for Worldcon in August. This year Worldcon is in LA and next year it is in Montreal. I suspect even fewer international folks will attend this year.

The Sam Spindle illustrations are a lot more time consuming than the graphic novels, in part because I’m drawing everything from scratch for every page and I’ll be publishing two pages at a time. This might cause me to reduce my posting frequency. Quality over quantity 🤷‍♀️.

I’m not one to set New Years resolutions. I do hope to beat my 5K personal record again.

Thank you for reading my Substack. Becoming a paid subscriber will support me after I leave the country. Sharing my work is also greatly appreciated. I wish you a safe and happy new year.