oennarts

Have you ever have one of those moment, when you have known a song for years that you found nice in passing, but put no mind into it, until it finds its way back to you years later, and suddenly, you understand it so deeply it moves you to tears? Because you sadly got to experience what it was talking about, and you couldn't appreciate the message until then? And now that you have, you feel so grateful this song exists?

I never though I would ever cry to a U2 song. Not because I don't like that group. I do. I have a couple of albums from them and have been listening to their music since 2001. But their music never stroke my soul, until now because I wasn't yet ready for what they meant musically.

Usually, the music I listen to are music I can put on scenes and stories I made, that can help carry an emotional narrative. U2's songs are already so full and melodically so unique, I found difficult to use them as a story back up. They tell their own story, but they don't tell mine. And maybe that is why I couldn't appreciate them so far, because I was treating it like any other song. I applied them to a story, instead of myself. But finally, it all changed.

Those last days have been rather tough on me. The past years were in general, but the last month was peculiarly rough. However, I feel like sharing some of the relief a couple lyrics gave me today.

My health plummeted at the beginning of this year. Again. But honestly, this time gave me a fright. It started with a little cold. A simple cold and a bit of fever. But due to my second COVID last summer, my health was already fragile and my immune system weakened. So I had not much defense left against this tiny bug which, worsen, and grow like a snowball, spreading to my lungs, leaving me breathless and suffocating for weeks.

I spend a full month battling against that, trying to find a way to breath again. Every whiff of air being harder than the previous one. People don't realize how breathing is important until you struggle to get enough air in your system to function. Fearing sleeping because you do not know if you will wake up again gasping for air, your heart racing. Because your nose is sealed off, so dry, it bleeds, because you clenching your jaw and if you breath from your mouth, you will trigger a wave of coughing that will chock you up. Having to run in another room during the night to not wake up anyone, and being there alone, suffocating, unable to get anything in because your body wants desperately to expulse something that isn't there. Feeling you chest tensed, trying to calm the spasms, that you know will just hurt you more.

In those moments, you are left with no energy, except the one to think. To think of what you have become.

A shell of yourself you have dragged along for the past 4 years. A husk of a person that can't get out of bed, that get tired from simply changing cloth. That loons around, trying to find a reason to be. And wondering were your let yourself go and why you can't find it back. Despite fighting, and searching. And failing, over and over to regain a spark that will put you back on your legs.

Because the idea of standing up is overshadowed by your fear of not knowing how long it will take before you will physically collapse again. Because you realize, that drawing, reading, creating doesn't bring you any joy any more. While your entire life, it was your reason to be. And without that, you can't find enough power to fight against your own broken body.

It was you air. And now, you struggle to even do those things, you could do without thinking. Having to fight and struggle to even take in any tiny amount of it, not because you enjoy it - the feeling of peace is long gone - but because if you give up, you are as good a dead.

To come to the realization that my art was my breath but now I am fighting to get it back, just like I am fighting to get air, is heartbreaking. It is not a pleasant feeling. This suffocating distress of needing something, gathering all your will power to grasp any amount you can to give yourself a brief reprieve, only to realize you didn't get enough and have to fight for more the second it fades away.

So you lie there, taking it all in. That this has been your life for the past years. With your art, your motivation, your joy, your energy, your everything. And that it is simply manifesting in the most physical way possible.

You are stuck in a moment. Stuck in a loop for so long you don't know how to get out of it. Something you don't even wish to your worse enemy. You want to finish you project, the way you want oxygen again. But you can't because your body won't allow you to. Your heart is frozen, your mind shattered, and just like an infection, spreading, growing because it found the perfect weaken ground, it take roots and won't let go.

Then you hear a song, you haven't heard in years. In a movie you watched because you came across it in a moment of dephasing and let yourself be carried by your curiosity. You see an old lion, crippled by grief, unable to leave his house, unable to sing again, because his muse is gone, be sang to one of his songs, by a random stranger. A song about being stuck. And suddenly, the lyrics make sense to you. And make you cry.

Because the lyrics are you. They are your pain, and they are your sorrow, and they allow you you the tears you have been holding back, and the rage you tried to contain, to form and escape.

Oddly this pain, you knew was there and have acknowledged many times before without really looking at it, isn't ugly. Isn't scary. It is there with you, but it is not a monster. It is a proof of your life, of the joy long gone, and the hope that was once there.

It is not to be feared. It is to be hugged and comforted. It is not your enemy, it is your reflection. It need not to be fought, it needs to be looked at. It is the proof you are still there, feeling, and casting it aside, is casting a part of your existence.

When I was a young child, no matter how dark my life had been - and dark it was, way more than now ironically - I never felt it was too much. I refused to lose hope, and carried on, because no matter how painful it was, that pain was my only proof I was alive. Proof I existed. Even if I didn't like it, I preferred it over not being.

I though, as long as I was, I could be more, I could see more, I could learn more, I could create more. It gave me so much strength, so much power. Today, I wonder were this child has gone. Tonight, I want to be this child again.

Recently, I feared that maybe because I had no moment of peace throughout my life, I burned her all up? That this pain was her. All bruised up. Tired and crying. Telling me, I used to be stronger, I use to be smarter and braver. I used to be her. And I felt so much shame from letting her down.

But now I realize, that child had no other choice than being this way. I discarded that pain of not being able to rest, because I was simply surviving. But I never lived. I am master surviving. We all do. But growing up, I came to see that we all suck at living. Society doesn't teach us how. And doesn't allow us to. And it the adult me that needs to make that change. To teach my old self what life is.

Those tears, this rage, this cry, is this realization. The reason why I can't anymore, isn't because I run out, it is because I have to learn to go without the stress of disappearing and be no more. In reality, I don't have to prove my value to society, to any Gods, to my family and all the people that told me I wasn't enough.

I just have to be.

I just have to think: was I drawing because I want approval or because I had joy in it? Was I playing music because I was told it gave me worth or because it carried me? Was I writing because I want to show I was smart or because I want to give hope?

Am I breathing with my whole body because I am fighting off a disease, or simply because that is how naturally it goes?

And long as I am avoiding to answer to those questions, I won't budge from where I am.

There will always better days, they say. It is simply a bad moment that will pass, I heard. But the truth is, there won't be any better place to be if you stay immobile. As frustrating it is to write this. And as hopeless it may seem to be in that hole, the worst limit there can be is the one you put to your mind.

So be your own muse, be your own project, be your own music. Take a good breath... And make a step forward.

No matter where you are heading, even if it is in the dark, or in a scorching fire. It will always be better than standing still, not knowing where you could have reach and what you could have seen. There is no future to walk forward, if you don't move in your present.

As long as you can walk, there always be a ground to explore. And eventually, you will look back and realize, that road was worth taking. It may not make you reach any summit and force you leave behind places you loved and home you missed, but it still leads you somewhere.

I leads you to your life. The one you had, and the one ahead. With every pain and tears, with every laughter and despair. No road is made for you but the one you build, no path is waiting for you but the one you create. And no one can walk it for you.

No shame in standing still, no wrong is saying you are tired. No failing in voicing how hard it is and that you have reached your limit. You are allowed to take a breather, you are allow to say "nope, I am good here." As long as, it makes you happy.

Just make that yours. However, if you feel it is not your place, don't make this misery your home. Don't feel bad because you took the wrong turn. We all stumble. But we don't recover the same. So if you find a hand to help you up, grab it. If you need to crawl, use your nails. If tears comes up, let them run. If you need to step back, turn around. Every distance you can take, claim them as yours.

Every bit, every inch, fight for them, even if it painful. That bleed you losing is proof your heart beats, that scream you push is proof you have a voice, that sadness is proof you feel. Don't dismiss it, even if disturbs other. Allow them to be. Allow them out, allow them existence.

Until the bleed stops, until the scream turns into a humming, until the tears sooth out. Then you won't be crawling, you won't be fighting. You'll just be strolling. Peacefully. Feeling the wind, experiencing the rain, talking with passerby.

Breathing again like you were meant to be.

Hi everyone.

As I promise, I will give you a little explanation as to why I got so silent for literally 3 years.

To make it short, I had a massive burn out, physical health issue and a pretty sever broken heart. But in reality it is a bit more complicated.... (Because of course it is).

To give you a timeline, in 2019 after spending 7 years of my life in USA, and trying to fight Trump new immigration fuckery for 3 years (from his intronization to the last month I spent in USA), I went to Canada and started everything over. With literally nothing left for me in my bank account but enough to pay for a rent for two month. If that one wasn't successful I would have had no back up and would be forced to return in France with nothing.

The company that hired me, did it with 2 years on my contract. So there was a certain belief that I would be there for at least this time, which would have allowed me after a year to personally apply for permanent residency (the thing I couldn't even start to apply for in USA because laws over there are impossible!)

Just before I arrived to Canada, I used my last bit of saving to return to France one last time, to assist to the wedding of one of my three best friends. The wedding went well. Then I proceeded to move to Canada, and worked my ass off in the new studio. But as I was dealing with the beginning of a burnout, I also received no news from my three besties. I was communicating with them until mid August (so a month after my arrival) then suddenly before my birthday everything stopped. No news. Nothing.

Those were friends I knew since Junior Hight, and also my first real friends. I have known them for almost 20 years, and to be faire it was odd to not hear from them. It lasted for three months; despite writing them, trying to get in touch, I was having no reply and was left on read. Then, only 4 months after I started my new job, the HR told me they were going to laid me off since there was no other project for me. Which honestly was such a dick move. They made me move from a country to another specifically for this and laid me off soon after I finish to unpack. I did asked them for how long they were planning to keep me because I was seeing a lot of going in and out of our studio, but they keep on saying that it would be as marked on my contract.

It was too much. I was not financial back on track to be able to sustain any rent without work. And I needed to work if I wanted to get my residency. So my immigration status being in jeopardy and the lack of news from my friends really freaked me out. I sent a message to them because I really needed to hear from them, I was worried something was happening to them and this is when I finally got a reply. From my recently married friend.

She informed me that a few people had reported to her that I had "done or said" stuff at her wedding that could have harm the reputation of her husband. Therefore she didn't want to talk to me ever again. And I had no idea what she was talking about. I still don't know. I was absolutely horrified at the though I had done something like that and asked to tell me what I said because the only conversation I had about her husband was that I was glad he knew how to dance because that was her dream and it was cool. But she refused to say more. She said if I couldn't remember, she couldn't help me. I told her that I wanted to apologies properly, therefore properly know why I was apologizing for so it had meaning. But she didn't care since she had no attention to forgive me (but that is not why I wanted to apologize. I don't say sorry to be forgiven, that is not what apologies are for). She closed the conversation on that and that was it. I lost my three best friends, and I have no idea why. And this was the beginning of my breakdown.

Those girls were the reason I started writing and drawing comics. I created story for them, and most of my stories talk about how their friendship pulled me out of the dark pit I was in. I wanted to tell people that even if they are alone and feel like it will be always the case, in time friends that defy time will come to them.

But them gone, suddenly all my stories felt like lies. Them gone, I didn't know why I was writing or drawing anymore. They were in shorts so entangled with my creative fuel, that the moment they brutally disappear from my life, it became senseless to continue.

I was even more painful because I had no explanation to my "why". If only I had known what was that thing I said that was so horrible that I lost three friends in a snap, so at least I could be angry properly at myself and have closure over my mistake. To be fair, I would prefer to find a way to make it less of a painful memory for my former friend, but since they refuse to talk to me, I have no way of doing it. So the least I could do is reflect on what I have done, but I don't have that information either.

And because I don't have it, I spend the last three years regularly dreaming of them, trying to solve something that was unsolvable only to wake up in tear because I was still in this madness. Three years of regular nightmares over it, of immense grief that I couldn't pass on because I am missing one piece of the puzzle.

And the worse part is that I am still friend with THEIR parents. They still talk to me which doesn't make ANY SENSE! So to that, cumulated with my job loss so early after I arrived, all of it before COVID, I felt like all my life force and motivation were sucked out of me. I tried to carried on. And continue to draw while I was trying to figure my situation out, but I got COVID (in April 2020) and its aftermath symptoms obliterated me.

(So for those who still comes at me for taking COVID seriously, hey read what follow and get off my back!)

I suffered from dizziness, heart palpitation and I started to lose all my hair. (It is the period some of you saw me with a head scarf during my stream, it was to prevent my hair from going everywhere). By the way, I stopped streaming because it was to straining on my body and I almost faint live once. After that incident, I decided that live stream was too much and I didn't want to record any potential health incident. My audience is young, I don't want them to witness that.

Luckily, I go rehired just after that.

Thus, in this physical state, I returned to work and became supervisor, with a lot more responsibility that drained me of the last bit of energy I had left. By the end of 2020, I had loss half of my hair, was severely anemic, cripple with nightmare, and working aside of my fulltime job was just impossible. Added to all those symptoms, I started to develop sever headaches and digestive problems. When I would switch between period when I could eat normally and period when I had to eat only rice and applesauce.

Then a few months after that, I got pregnant.... but it didn't last. (I don't know if you remember, I wrote something about it before. Just after April Fool (which is the day I miscarried.... Yeah this is not a joke.))

Being a mom as always been my dream and that miscarriage was incredibly painful, both physically and mentally. After that I was like in a dark limbo were I just functionate on the bare necessity. I encountered another issue with my immigration status, and in less that 48h I lost my visa, my job and almost my boyfriend (thankfully all went back to normal shortly after, but this was still a pretty severe rollercoaster for me).

My health however didn't improve. And after a year of pain and sickness, I received a message from the city infrastructure telling me that my building was connected to old lead pipes. And I have been drinking this water for two years. I wasn't the only one sick in my apartment, my cats were too and my plants were all dying. My boyfriend was fine, but I was the the most severely affected. I don't know exactly when it hit me for real. After the trip to the hospital, after being forced to cut my hair to save them, or by being unable to eat for weeks, or literally after yelling at my former friend in one of my dream that they were no longer my friends and I couldn't endure of dreaming about them being with me anymore before being woken up by my own tears. Maybe it was when I walked down to the doctor to go confirm I was no longer pregnant, that all of this started to make way and reaches its pick on the day, I was about to buy my house. I just got back from the visit, and we had found a house that was what I dreamed about all my life, yet, after the excitation of the visit was over, I was just left with the feeling of intense sadness. I just wanted to cry and I didn't know why. It is only after talking it out that I put my nail on it. I always wanted to buy a big house so I could welcome my friends in it. A safe heaven for all of us... I had found the house but I no longer had my friends with me. I recalled having this flashing memory of what I dreamed as a teen, this house and them next to me. And suddenly, I broke down because I realize that even my dream house I had it built with them in it. I had built my life always thinking they would be there. And that house made no sense if it was not to share it with them. It all hit me in one big giant slap, that I wasn't over that loss, that I was still pretty much grieving and was way more affected that I allow myself to acknowledge.

I think this is the moment I decided that I needed to take care of me and slow down, because I was not going to make it, in any shape of form. All this time I was trying to get back to my comics but I couldn't and I felt guilty about what I though was me just being lazy. But at that moment, I acknowledge the reality: the idea of drawing again just caused me physical distress because I was not over my loss.

Every time I tried to hold a pen to draw or lay down my Cintiq to get on it, I have this physical reaction of pure pain and nausea. And it has been like that ever since. I want to redraw but my body and mind react to it the same way I react to a diet (I am a former anorexic and the idea of returning there just terrifies me. That story is for another time.)

I know I had a lot of unhealthy creative process, which all exploded in my face when the dam broke. Until then I had compensated with my body. But finally, I exhausted it. Mentally and physically. So what I am doing know is trying to figure out what I can create with a fresh me, and a rested mind, with healthier reason. Not because I wanted to draw for friends that no longer are in my life, but for me again. And this had been harder than I hoped for. Just writing this down took me literally two years.

So no I haven't abandoned any of my projects, I just trying to find my self back and rekindle a love for art that has been pretty toxic for the past 20 years. The fact that I can talk about it now is a proof I am getting there. A little.

I'll try to relaunch things, hopefully before the end of the year. But I can't promise it. I won't promise anything I am not sure of. I just wanted to let you know, what had happened and why it happened. I am truly sorry I vanished like that. I just need time, for myself. To recover for the past years.

Hopefully this long break will be over soon. And you will be there to see how it goes.

So I woke up this morning, to check my Deviantart, to receive a notification from them, that my artwork was detected on a NFT selling platform Open(fucking)Sea: The True Color ($4.59) https://opensea.io/assets/matic/0x2953399124f0cbb46d2cbacd8a89cf0599974963/5022050226205619981073741032197855197771767389830461159521721896998015074305 Giftday 2016 ($26.79) https://opensea.io/assets/matic/0x2953399124f0cbb46d2cbacd8a89cf0599974963/5022050226205619981073741032197855197771767389830461159521722078417433657345

Giftaday 2016: living room details ($3.44) https://opensea.io/assets/matic/0x2953399124f0cbb46d2cbacd8a89cf0599974963/5022050226205619981073741032197855197771767389830461159521721945376526696449 And Undertale GO! ($15.31) https://opensea.io/assets/matic/0x2953399124f0cbb46d2cbacd8a89cf0599974963/5022050226205619981073741032197855197771767389830461159521722012446735990785 By this anonymous asshole: https://opensea.io/0x0b1a6133e18b35943d839165ee8ce8f87c534a62 First, for a digital art sell, it is a fucking scam. Especially for stuff that are supposed to be free. Second: never give my authorization for that. (The usual scammer thief) Not going to lie, I am pissed. Not only because I am mostly building a Patreon-based community here, there for my art is free, but also because there are supposed to be only two places you can buy my art (in material form): my website (and only in specific ways, following Toby Fox guideline for fan art content) or here, on Deviant Art (with very few select artworks, for copyright reasons with Undertale). And this asshole, this petty thief, not only go ahead and just put my art on his platform, but it is literally ALL Undertale artwork they stole. Like all the one you can find out there is on it. So lots of artists are concerned. I hope that together, we can remove that dick off the network. I already contacted both the founders of the network, because I don't trust their "Ticket" system. https://twitter.com/dfinzer (not reachable except with twitter mention) https://twitter.com/xanderatallah (reachable) So if you, out there, have your artwork also on this thief gallery, I suggest you contact those two gentlemen and put a bit of pressure on them. Also seriously, don't PAY a digital art piece the price of something that is material. Fucking hell. NFT's are a scam. Don't buy into. You will just lose your money.

Hello everyone. I hope you are all doing well and that my little joke yesterday wasn't too much for some. This message is actually the one I was going to post yesterday, but as I was passing through it before posting it, I felt like April Fool wasn't the right time to disclose updates on my health. Also, I suddenly felt like being serious was too much for me, especially after the day I had yesterday. Therefore, I am doing this today instead. I know I have been absent for a long while now. And Unaltered Reset didn't return as I promised. So I wanted to give you some explanation. First, I am deeply sorry for the long silence, things got crazy as I needed time for myself to recover from COVID. Because that disease really messed me up, in the end. And trust me, it is not a lack of management nor respect that made me keep silence about. Well... maybe a bit of a management problem, let's be honest (lol). But mainly, my health and 2020 left me on my knees. I have many times tried to write similar messages in the past months, one even for Christmas, that I never submitted because of how overwhelming it was to disclose that my body was letting me down, without knowing when it would get better. Just like, once you are late for work, and don't know how to tell your boss you don't know when you get there. You end up just embracing the situation, instead of stressing yourself over something that is out of your control. You'll be there when you'll be there. So why agonizing over it, right? Well, truth to be told, it is not professional, and I hate being unprofessional. Although, with the present chaos in our life, I thought everyone had other things to deal with as well, so I ended up always erasing the message or just not posting.

However, I have received a few messages recently of people wondering where I am, and it makes me happy and sad to realize that after this long, there is still people wanting to read my work. However, I wasn't planning to make my catch-up message this way, I was preparing a nice little come back game but after this week, I remember one of my personal rule: no better time than now. And the first one of them all: No lie and no regret. So tonight, let's share and inform, but also reconnect with all of you. Without any decorum. And we begin with the star of 2020: coronavirus. (Because, of course, we need to talk about that) Yes, I know, I got sick in April, which should be an old story but while the disease on itself was less strong than the regular flue, it took me three weeks to shake it off. Or so I thought. The aftermath was actually worse. I started to suffer heart problems after June, following the intense schedule I put myself through for the Webtoon contest. Which now I think of it, I should never have forced myself to endure just after being sick. Among the passengers of that jolly ride, I counted in the prime suit: heart irregularities, vertigo and constant dizziness, which on one instance was recorded live while I was working on my comics "You'll be a man". (Inner thought: This contest really destroyed me physically. And I am never putting myself through this again). So the exhaustion of the contest cumulate to the aftermath of Coronavirus, I went down a pretty bad road made of days when I was fine (following some resting period) and days when suddenly my body switch to the worse, despite not pushing it. Which cumulate in August when I almost cracked my head open against my sink while I was washing my hands, simply because suddenly my legs wouldn't carry me. For weeks following that, I had to be extra careful of sudden loss of balance or arrhythmia, sometimes so brutal, there were mornings I couldn't get out of bed. Shortly after that, despite not being physically well, I also got rehired at my previous studio, and got promoted which is a yeah for me, but increased my load of work and therefore fatigue. My heart didn't improve and by September, I realized I had loss a quarter of my hair. Every day, I was losing a handful of them (still does), to the point I had to wear a headscarf to prevent the loss from worsening. Or at least not find my hair everywhere in the house. At that point, I stopped streaming, because it was too much to deal for me and I didn't want people to see my looking sickly on camera. I had other symptoms getting in the way, and honestly I couldn't do anything but work on my recovery. I still produced my piece for the Sexyzine that I had committed myself earlier that year to join, but that was all I could give. And I think it shows in my timeline. But it wasn't a lack of motivation, I just couldn't draw. Turns out, I am severely anemic, and had been probably for years. The funny part is that I am extremely careful of my health. Yet, I got so use to certain symptoms, that I learned over the years to dismiss them, as until now, no doctors (not even my parents (to be fair, it shouldn't surprise me)) took them seriously. In itself, it is a whole topic and discussion. But for another time. What COVID did to me was to increase symptoms I was so used to, I wasn't noticing how bad they were anymore. And the price was pretty severe.

Yesterday, I had a miscarriage. The pregnancy in itself was a stressful surprise that, despite my desire to have a family, was far too early and was going to threaten my settlement in Canada. In terms of health, finance and even legal status, seeing my immigration depends on my ability to work and the fact that as long as I am not a permanent resident, I do not belong to the Canadian health care system. But on April fool, as if my body wanted to make the biggest joke on me, after days of increasing excruciating pain, I lost it. To say, I was hurt, is an understatement. Part of me, was baffled at how much of surreal this felt like. And how lonely, the entire experience was in the end, despite the support of my partner. So Yesterday, I was going to put all of it done, because I needed to let it out, but, April Fool, is the worse day for that. Then I felt I wanted to make something absurd and over the top dramatic, to counterbalance the pain I was experiencing. My art is important for me, just like having a family one day. So to not lose balance, I saw the bright side: I am still having my arts. Writing down a reason for the comics to stop, was a way to cope for the other loss I just had. And it felt so absurd at the moment, that I laughed, and I needed that.

On the bright side, I started a treatment for my anemia in January, and I am seeing improvement (losing less of my hair, but the moment I stop the iron supplement the hair restart falling). I even restarted to work on the UR website. So Unaltered Reset is definitely not dead, and will come back. I am sorry it is taking so long, your interest must be long gone by now, and I wouldn't blame you for it. But I will restart, sometimes this year. Once I am fully recovered and rested. But after yesterday event, I realize that it won't be next week. My body spoke, and I need to listen. Nevertheless, it will happen. And once I have a safe date, I will let you all know. I hope you will still support my art then, but in the meanwhile I wish you all to be well and safe. Thank you very much and have a good evening.

It is with regret I have to announce the termination of Unaltered Reset. And my Deviant art platform as well. Apparently I have broke the copyright rule of Undertale, and I was requested by letter to remove from my gallery any work related to my project. Since most of the content here is Undertale related, I have no choice but to close temporarily my presence on this media until I sort things out. Despite being extremely careful all those years to respect carefully the guideline Tobi Fox had put on fan art, I guess my project was a bit too ambitious, and for that I am truly sorry. I am grateful for all your support even if my life was such a rollercoaster I wasn't able to produce much. I'll to find your support on other projects but until I wish you all a good week and a good night. Thank you for everything. Also... April Fool, folks!