#erinthoughts

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Happy new year, everyone <3

Summary of 2025 ⋆｡°✩

JAN: Uni Graduation ceremony! Mixed feelings, as some relatives really tried to make it about them... this lead to me starting therapy.

FEB: Three day trip to Kastoria with my partner and my friend Niki right after we went to the course for the Tempi train crash. I loved every second of both.

MAR: Showed up to Chios to surprise my sick grandpa, thankfully he fully recovered! Also, a lot of portfolio work.

APR: Had the most wonderful birthday with my partner, Magdalene and Dimi at Grande Bretagne hotel! I love my friends <3

MAY: Went to Thessalonki Comic Con for the first time, shared a room with Dimi Nanabbi and Kon! I had a ton of fun, I hope we will get to go this year also! ✧ Nana was so resourceful, Dimi and I forgot half our luggage contents at home lol ///

JUN: Spent half my salary on physio to treat my crippling tennis elbow... yeeouch. Huge wildfires break out in Chios, some dangerously close to my grandmother's house. 20% of the plantation of the island is gone, animals die.

JUL: Aigina day trip with Niki, Kon and my partner! I really want to go again, the sea was mesmerizing...༄.°

AUG: Gave my one month notice and quit my soul-sucking job!

SEP: In 48 hours I left my job for good, travelled to Chania for Chaniartoon, spent almost an entire salary on my father's neglected dog's surgery and my uncle had heart attack and open heart surgery. Yeah.

OCT: Like almost magic, a ton of freelance business opportunities popped up, as if my resignation manifested projects I wouldn't have the time to take up otherwise.

NOV: So. Much. Freelance. Work. Still dealing with the shock of September... and the crippling depression of unemployment.

DEC: Athenscon, Christmas with Magdalene, her family, Dimi and Thanos and Chios trip. My family met my partner for the first time. I was very nervous, but it went remarkably well!

It was a full year with a ton of ups and downs. The first year since 2019 that I didn't complete a comic; a conscious choice on my part as I wanted to complete more portfolio works. I saw the fruits of my 2024 perspective study labour show gracefully in the new pieces I made!

Also THERAPY!!! Therapy works!!! I cannot recommend it enough!

Thank you very much everyone for sticking by for this wonderful journey. 2026 is going to be a huge financial gamble, but I am more than ready to undertake this challenge. I am entering 2026 with wonderful friends, an incredible partner and a new house waiting for me this May! I am so grateful.

Onwards and Upwards!

. ܁₊ ⊹ . ܁ ⟡ ܁ . ⊹ ₊ ܁.

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˗ˋˏʚ♡ɞˎˊ˗

I started listening to Cal Newport's podcast and I have never been so puzzled about my future plans before... o|-<

The term "lifestyle centric career planning" really makes me question what my ultimate goal is when it comes to my day-to-day activities. I think my main priority is eventually working exclusively remotely -or at least live close to where I work (I don't drive and spend a minimum of 3-4 hours 3 days a week in traffic going to work..)

Yikes, nobody could have prepared me for how chaotic the mid-20s are, especially when you are so far away from home.

Is it wise to plan around an idealized version of life? Or to plan in accordance to a realistic standard set by capitalism? Will the former result to the latter, and the latter to slightly more bearable version of what I already experience?

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So, I've made a Bluesky account.

I have been contemplating for a while what my use of Social Media is going to look like now that I've engaged more and more with the concept of Digital Minimalism.

I do not wish to get addicted to SoMe again, and thus I've concluded that I am going to be using Bluesky for micro-blogging and WIPs, and Tumblr for more complex posts. I think a portfolio-like approach to Tumblr is much more satisfying visual representation of my internet activity, while Bluesky is more like dumb fun to me -and I'm actually having fun wow!

Still considering what I'm going to do with Instagram, I've come to hate that place. But most of my followers lurk there, so... o(-<

But yeah, for more frequent updates, definitely find me on Bluesky 💙

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.𖥔 ݁ ˖๋ ࣭ ⭑

Returning to Tumblr has been so refreshing so far;; I really need to search for more mutual of mine here..

I am working overtime almost every day including weekends due to Black Friday (which is more like Black Month for Retail in Greece), but logging in and seeing so many cool artists and actual appreciation for my own artwork has made it so much more tolerable!

The future is still blurry; but despite it all I adore to see passionate communities filled with people that still care.

Thank you all! You make me feel like a teenager again.

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. ★⋆.

Slowly healing my content addiction finally allows me to enjoy the media that the algorithm has forgotten! They don't feel like a waste of time anymore. I just started playing FFVIII and oh my god, this game so far is a well constructed social-political drama that oozes passion and inspiration. I just miss when games surpassed technical difficulties in such creative ways, the pseudo-3d backgrounds are incredibly charming!

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I, uh, lost track of time again..

Last time I made a post was literally 4 months ago, on Bluesky.

I have been thinking lately if there's merit into separating your online presence as an artist from your online presence as a marketing worker, and if it's even possible to do in Greece. Can an artist attend physical conventions but preserve anonymity? Athens is such a small place. Everyone seems to know everyone.

After losing a therapy appointment because of oversleeping, my therapist made me think why that happened. The obvious answer was that I overslept because I was tired. But the actual answer was that there are no days in my life except for Saturday and Sunday. Therapy sessions are on Thursday mornings, before work; thus one of the days I am not fully conscious of, on the downtime right before Friday, which is one day before an actual life day.

All that to say, I am quitting my dayjob.

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The Sleeping Green by Lunar Womb

In 2016, I discovered Jumalten aika by Moonsorrow, one of my all-time favourite Black Metal albums. I remember saying that, if I was forced to listen to only one song until I died, it would be Ruttolehto sis. Päivättömän Päivän Kansa, and as edgy as I made it sound, present me would still be pleased by the song choice.

In 2021, I found the album I've embedded above while searching for 90s Dungeon Synth, just when the genre was really starting to pick up with a little help from the YouTube algorithm. It quickly became an all-time favourite of mine, and I find myself yearning to be perceived exactly as it makes me feel while I'm listening to it.

This year I realized that The Sleeping Green almost never saw the light of day, as it is the first and only solo album by Henri Sorvali, the guitarist/keyboardist of Moonsorrow.

It amazes me to see how growing older our unique taste evolves, only to make circles and end up right where it started forming. 𓇢𓆸

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. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

I think stopping to post thoughts in text form on social media was a conscious decision on my part.

I remember I used to post on my Deviantart journal a lot when I was younger.. I did art tags, facts and quizzes with my online friends, until I gave up on writing altogether -expect from my Facebook, where I made the occasional political vent.

Sterilising our thoughts in order to remain marketable, hireable, or likeable, it normal to a degree. I was a very edgy teenager, sometimes I still remember the inappropriate jokes I made and cringe in disbelief.. But as a teenager, my job was to be hormonal, discover my passions and boundaries, and make mistakes.

I found comfort in disappearing means of communication, like Instagram stories, where every potential misstep is only temporary. Conveniently, social media evolved towards this exact direction. So I indulged for a while, until short-form content became so fast and incomprehensible, that I yearned for something more permanent.

Every time I find a new person I like, I simply adore to see the way they type, the way they present their unique perspective of our parallel, shared lives. Even their older posts, where they seem less than the self I get to know and enjoy.

So why hide?

I would really like to write my thoughts more often.

Not vents, just thoughts.