Mar 3, 2021
Hi, this is Meg. This post has been coming for a while, but as you may imagine it's hard to write.
I should put the short version up top. Roll to Breathe will not return for any forseeable future, likely not ever.
We started nearly four years ago, now, on a total whim. A name was hastily chosen and wrapped around a simple logo. Our fastest artist popped out an excellent cover in a short amount of time, and we were off to the races. It was Kyle's first time GMing, his only prior experience being a few Dungeon World games. So we played, we had fun, and we were surprised by how quickly we built a small but devoted fanbase of relative strangers. We had difficulties, but we found solutions and we kept going.
After a while there was a subtle shift in our philosophy and approach to the show. I don't think it was conscious or abrupt, but a lot of us stopped approaching games for the show as a fun activity we happened to have the mics rolling for. We were artists, creators, and we were laser focused on telling a good story and creating content that our listeners would love.
This wasn't totally a bad thing. Steel City Rhapsody is, to this day, one of my favorite stories I've ever told. I'm proud of the work we did on Junkyard Elysium and Juniper Springs, and going into Masks again was exciting. But cracks had formed all throughout these games--nothing big at first, maybe a last-second episode rendering here, a cancelled session there, a few-minute-late posting over there. By the time we finished the fifteen or so sessions of the latest Masks season, the cracks had become clearly visible in the form of markedly worse mental health and unbearable creative anxieties.
When we called for the hiatus, I approached Kyle and Holly, who do all of the editing for our show. The consensus between the three of us was that Roll to Breathe was untenable, but that we'd still like to finish the Masks season.
Months passed. I thought of asking the group chat about starting up again around the first of every month, but my stomach sank with the thought and I'd put it off. Soon it was December, and it was Kyle who finally approached me about making this call. (Go thank him for it.)
It would have been nice to see the end of this Masks journey, but the improved mental well-being of our team is much nicer to see. If you like our content, we're fortunately all creative souls, and we'll still be doing things. Here's the American Graffiti ending for you!
Kyle finally told the world he was dating Meg since late 2019, for those invested in the player chemistry. It should come as no surprise, then, that Meg, who writes this, is going to gush affectionately that he's been working hard as an indie game pixel artist. His work is featured in Star Seeker, as well as the upcoming titles War Girl, Super Punchy Face, and Sun Haven. You can follow his twitter, @bugbearstew, to see where he goes next.
Meg finally stopped turning her fanfiction ideas into tabletop characters and just wrote some actual goddamn fanfiction. She still crochets a lot and recently picked back up on writing her TTRPG, The Space Between Us. You can follow her at @Yakomeg on twitter if you want to know more.
Holly took her newfound time not editing Roll to Breathe to dip her toes into a myriad of projects, none of which are fully ready to see the light of day, but all of which are highly exciting. To see them when they drop, follow @goldwright on Twitter.
Bee has not stopped drawing, even when their hand hurts, no matter how much we yell at them. They're taking their skill to the realm of webcomics; their project hasn't been fully announced yet, but those who have seen a sneak preview are excited. Follow @asimplebee on Twitter to get in on the ground floor.
Jovian returned to his home planet, where he has been plotting world domination and miscellaneous stories. He now takes art commissions and posts about story ideas via character profiles on Toyhou.se. As the rest of us, he has a twitter, @joviantwelve, for broadcasting miscellany into the world... to soften us up for a Jupiter takeover, one can suppose.
Chris, having enjoyed his time in the limelight, returned to his home swamp a changed man. While he figures out where he's going next, you can follow his twitter, @HOG_ZONE, for the highest quality of swamp posts.
Beckett dramatically sacrificed himself for this happy ending. There's a little Beckett in all of us, now, and if you look closely at photographs of major events, you may see a familiar ginger-haired boy.
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much for this journey.