State of the Skeleton March ’25 | Not Good. (**Update**)

**Update - Because the hits keep coming, on Wednesday we had to "give peace” to our loving, floppy dog Dollop. She was at home, on the couch (her favorite place), and in our arms when we said goodbye. If you’ve already read the post below, you know it’s been tough lately, and maybe it’s all compounded but this was the toughest day. I’ll miss her so fucking much.

But I’m writing this at a coffee shop. I’m out of the house, (nearly caught up on Severance!) and dedicating today to getting back to work. Life has to go on. And Dollop would want me working so she could snooze on her spot in the office and bark/scratch at me when she needed to go out, or was hungry, or if it was past time for late-night couch snuggles. Gotta keep going for her.

Hug ‘em if you got 'em.

Ok, on to the original post.

Hey Skele-fam,

This is not an easy post to make. I do not have great news. Though there is some good news at the end, I swear.

I’m getting tired of writing these long messages as I’m sure you’re tired of reading them. But seriously, the month of February just vanished for me. On the weekend of Valentine’s Day, I received a flurry of texts from my sister. Of the three of us kids, she's the one who still lives in Alaska, so she’s nearest to my parents and things were not looking good with my Mom. By Sunday she was telling my brother and I that this might be it. This wasn’t totally unexpected, seeing Mom at Thanksgiving and then Christmas, it was a shock how quickly things had turned in just that month. My mom had been stage 4 cancer for something like 5 years, and other than a few rough episodes, she’d been mostly fine... until she suddenly wasn’t. When I saw that cheap plane tickets were still available, I bought one for a few hours later, quickly packed, and headed out. I didn’t buy a return ticket because I had no idea what tomorrow would look like.

When I get there Mom is in the hospital recovering from what turned out to be a fall (bruised but nothing broken, thankfully) and a bladder infection. Even with antibiotics to treat the infection, she’s past "bouncing back", the doctor said we’re looking at weeks. The fury of dealing with hospice care, setting up extra help at home when Mom's discharged, renting her a hospital bed for home, keeping mom as comfortable as possible in the last days, plus dealing with my dad who’s physically healthy but has early onset dementia… it was all a blur. We get her set up back at home, when they say now it’s looking like we only have days. She passed away a week after I'd arrived. My siblings and I worked to secure legal and financial stuff, and set Dad up with some help because he’s probably going to struggle living alone now. After another week, I was kinda going crazy. On top of the grief, I also just don’t like Alaska. It’s not the cold and the dark, it’s just so small and under-stimulating. I need the bustle of a city, I need to do things, I can’t sit still in a quiet place, I was going a little crazy.

And I had a lot of other things on my mind, because in that background of all this was something else - Grace and I are separating. The timing couldn’t have been much worse, but I needed to get back home so Grace and I could start uncoupling our relationship. It’s a bittersweet thing because things had been rocky for at least a year or two, maybe longer. A lot of personal things too that I won’t go into but it was 12 years together. I was hoping the move to our new apartment would be a new chapter for us. But she saw me finally putting together my office and decided it was time to have that talk. She was the one to initiate the separation but it was something I couldn’t say I didn’t agree with. We’re not actually married but there’s still a lot to sort through and figure out - the dogs, finances, furniture and kitchen stuff, and we had to put that on hold so I could be there for my family as my mother passed. These things never happen at a good time - the saying I think sums it up best is “you can’t tell collapse to slow down”.

I’m sure you’ve noticed Grace has not been around much with the channel. Truth is she’s not been a part of SSFF for about a year and a half now. And before that she’d distanced herself from social media and the discord. For years SSFF had been something she was less and less happy being a part of and in 2023 was able to get a decently paying tech job in the city. At first she worked part-time with the channel but after a few months, it was clear she wouldn’t have the energy to do that. So the two Zeebo Games videos, and the Densha de Go video had very little input from her, and, outside of shooting convention footage, she's had no involvement with the Faceball doc.

I do still believe a huge strain our relationship was living in that moldy apartment for so many years. After a miserably hot 2021, we bought a really nice air conditioner after taxes, but I remember being upset that throughout 2022, we hardly had the chance to use it because it was a really rainy season! Same with 2023 and 2024, we had several really wet, rainy seasons, the type people always warn you about in Seattle. I realize now that’s when the building we were living in started to swell and leak. That’s when Grace and mine’s mental and physical health started to just plummet. Mold is absolutely no fucking joke. It’s a thumb on the scale of every little thing wrong with you. I was looking forward to getting back to that period in my life around early-2022, Grace and I were mostly healthy, my dog’s were both fine, and my mom was alive. But now that’s over, and I need to establish a new normal. But forever the two most creatively fulfilling things ever in my life - writing melodies and chords with Maya Hanson in Starship Amazing, and researching, writing, and punching up scripts with Grace Kramer for SSFF.

What does this mean for the channel?

Well, the PS Move SharpShooter UDUG is still forthcoming. I had planned on shooting that week I ended up having to fly to Alaska. I had a bonus Office Unpacking video shot that just before leaving, just needs a quick edited. And the Faceball video is so goddamn close to finished!

Oh! And about that! I managed to finally get an interview with Henk Rogers, who owns the Faceball 2000 IP and published the game! I’ve talked to the developers, but not the publishers and he had a lot of great insight on Faceball’s release, and the series after that, plus he’s just a pretty interesting and chill guy. He told me a bunch of stuff that I don’t think is out there at all! Dammit, this is going to be the most thorough video on Faceball ever! At this point I’m not even sure anyone is going to watch this damn thing but I’m going big!

Here’s a true story that’s maybe too morose to put in the documentary but it makes me laugh - so it’s literally hours after my mom has passed, she’s still in the hospital bed we set up in the living room, hospice has dressed and fixed my mom up nice, and funeral people are on their way to take her. Immediate family is all there, we’d been chatting and reminiscing. I have a moment to look at my phone, to check my email. And that’s when I get a cheery, excited email from The Tetris Company that Henk Rogers will be free to talk tomorrow. I look up at my mom, I look back down at my phone, back to my mom, back to my phone, and I just laugh. It was a sad day but hey at least this is great news! Again I know it’s morose but I just had to laugh. What else can you do?

I was able to talk to Henk Rogers for 90 minutes about Faceball 2000! Super nice guy, and it’ll be a great cap to this documentary and this story! I’ll need to edit it way down of course, and I’ll have to rewrite and reshoot the ending AGAIN, haha but this will be the last time! There’s nothing else that I’m willing to put this off for!

I will also be at the Midwest Gaming Classic again this year, to show 16-Player Faceball 2000 and possibly to screen the documentary! I guess that’s not been fully finalized yet, I was late getting all that sorted with them because of, well, everything, but I was sick as hell last year, I’m looking forward to maybe not being sick this time. So if you’ll be in the Milwaukee area in early April, come play some Faceball! Maybe you’ll get to meet Zari and Bob too!

All I know how to do is just keep moving forward. At times it feels like that all you can do. I’m still not ready to quit this though, even as I enter year number 18. These videos have consistently been a good distraction from tragedy. So I’ll just keep going.

Thanks for the support over these very tough few months. If I’ve lost you, I understand. But that just means I’m even more grateful if you’ve stuck around! So I’ll stick around and get back to work. I’ll see you again real soon.

Stay Powerful,
Derek