femonologue
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femonologue.bsky.social
femonologue
@femonologue.bsky.social
100 followers 94 following 230 posts
Originally broliloquy. oops 🏳️‍⚧️
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Reposted by femonologue
chuckburly.bsky.social
This should be perma-death stuff. Don't shop at Target ever again, even if they reverse course in the future.
marc-fischer.bsky.social Marc Fischer @marc-fischer.bsky.social · 7h
From a good friend in Minneapolis: "Target is allowing ICE to stage in their parking lots, use their restrooms, and abduct people from inside their stores - so if you weren’t boycotting already, now is the time." They were staging in Chicago as well.
January 12, 2026 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by femonologue
phantomarine.bsky.social
On a more positive note, many of the creators from Hiveworks came together to create the Chimera Comics Collective - a place where we could maintain the 'webring' aspect of Hiveworks and continue supporting each other.

Please follow us here! 🦁🐐🐍
@chimeracomics.bsky.social
A colorful illustration of a sleeping chimera, guarding a small tower of books.
January 12, 2026 at 9:21 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
Heeeyy, we can finally talk about this! So, I would like to co-sign everything in this open letter. I would also like to tell everyone about a specific grievance that @femonologue.bsky.social and I have with Xellette after the mishandling of our kickstarter. Screencap/receipts in🧵 to follow!
cartoonist.coop Cartoonist Cooperative @cartoonist.coop · 8h
The Hiveworks Artist Guild has released a public statement alleging years of labor abuses, financial mismanagement, and misconduct at Hiveworks at the hands of Xellette “Xel” Velamist and Isabelle “Isa” Melançon. Read their full statement at:

cartoonist.coop/hiveworks-gu...
Hiveworks Guild logo. Two bees sitting on a bee hive holding hands.
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
Way back in 2014, Xell basically bullied us into doing a kickstarter. We didn't feel ready, but we felt pressured to accept because Kickstarter was not, at that time, open to allowing Canadians to run campaigns. The problems started pretty much right away.
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
(Ironically, if we'd waited just a little longer, Kickstarter opened to Canadians soon after that and we could have handled everything on our own, which is what we both would have preferred)
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
I set up the kickstarter, messaged Xell for feedback because I was unsure of the campaign's structure and formatting, and with a tentative date that I wanted it to go live. Her response was to launch it immediately, and not...actually tell me she had done that! Found out it was live hours later.
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
Managing the kickstarter was immediately difficult, because there were two others happening at the time, Go Get A Roomie vol 1 had just wrapped, and Yamino launched Sister Claire vol 1 the second ours ended.
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
With so many people needing to access the same account, it was impossible to keep track of alerts and messages. Questions were directed to all 3 of us, and the odds that we found out about them right away were basically zero, making all 3 of us look like total flakes.
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
When our campaign ended, I knew I had to send out a survey & was trying to figure out what I wanted to put on it so that I could get the info I needed re: some custom art tiers. So when I messaged Xell about what I should include in a survey, she was like "I already sent one out! You're welcome!"
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
Not to mince words, the survey was shit, didn't ask anything useful, and as a result of what would follow, caused us basically endless misery for the next several years in regards to changing addresses, dead email addresses, unresponsive backers who I just wanted to give what they paid for!
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
Keeping in mind that, going into the kickstarter I had the book basically done outside of a few bonus pages I'd set aside room for in our initial quote and finished over a couple of weeks, everything should have been good to go as soon as Xell sent the money to the correct vendors.
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
I was told over and over that I would need to wait, excuse after excuse. It was like pulling teeth to do shit like get her to pay for some bookmarks or keychains, and then later the books themselves. In the meantime, I was in the dark about our books!
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
Even though they (eventually) got paid for & shipped to my house, I didn't get to see the print proof--it was sent to Isa & she didn't tell me she got it until I asked, was told she approved it weeks ago. Never got to see it! There were issues with the book that could have been fixed if I'd seen it!
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
And then when it came time to ship the books? Hive just did not have all the money at once. The excuses came! We didn't calculate canadian shipping correctly, and we didn't make enough to cover it after printing the books. But no worries, hive will generously pay for the shipping...sort of...
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
You see, there were also shipping issues with GGaR and Sister Claire. So what they had us do was ship small amount of books at a time, like max 20, pay out of pocket, and then invoice them for each batch. It was, again, a nightmare. It took like 6 months to ship them all!
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
It wasn't until 2016ish that we found out the REAL reason money for all three kickstarters dried up and had to be generously doled out in tiny little amounts, all the while scolding us for not being able to calculate shipping properly and not telling us when we would get upset backer messages.
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
The real reason? Xellette bought A CAR with the proceeds from all 3 kickstarters! A *fucking* CAR! That I don't even think she ever drove, because it was supposedly for her personal assistant who was super combative and quit like half a year after the kickstarters! So Xell sold the car!
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
After learning this information, I basically could not believe it. The kickstarter was over, though, things were shipped, I was experiencing major burnout. I stuck with hive. The story sounded too insane to be real! Which is why it is so cathartic to have the following screencaps!
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
These screencaps are from the last open meeting the Guild had with Hive staff. I left hiveworks not long after this, because it seemed important to get out before the tech staff quit and there was nobody to offboard us. Here are multiple staff members acknowledging that this did happen! (part one)
Screencaps from a discord meeting. Hive Staff A: Isa went to school for artist management, but not specifically for accounting/bookkeeping. I forget what sher exact degree was in. She did have some experience through previous jobs. it was a role she stepped into because there was no one else at the time because of how badly the funds were misappropriated for our first few kickstarters. Yes, we know the car story. Unfortunately, I have lived through it. Hive Staff B: I did NOT know the car story, and as I told Meg Syv, I wanted to scream blood when I found out. Hive Staff A: I had managed to block it from my memory. Non-guild hive artist: hoo boy August: I unfortunately had not. Hive Staff A: That was in the days before we had a warehouse. We were fulfilling Kickstarters from (identifying info cut). I was furious when I found out and so was Isa. It was that incident that led to Isa taking over financials. Non-Guild Hive artist: I remember the fury clearly (and somewhat fondly) ((because there was someone to be furious. good to have [thumbs up emoji])) Hive Staff A (direct reply to August): I think too many things have happened since then both here and elsewhere. Alli Shaw: 1. Could we trouble you to list what happened with the car story from your perspective? I feel like it's relevant to add context for the current situation. Especially if that's what made Isa step into her role. Hive Staff B: From the way she herself explains, it, Xel was under a frankly dumb assumption that she earned some of that money from Yamino's Kickstarter because of a stipend Yamino was being paid under at the time. Hive Staff A (direct reply to Alli Shaw): So our first kickstarters were the first Sister Claire, Go Get A Roomie and August's comic, The End. From what I remember, Xel believed that the proceeds at the end of those kickstarters belonged to her, not to the artists. August: which, to be clear, was a thing she never said to ANY of us, in any capacity. Hive staff A: No. And Isa and I didn't know either. Xel used that money to buy a car, which was used and then was later sold to someone else. Isa was furious because of this and that's the point she took over financials from Xel and ran them until early this year. August: So from my end, I was sending messages being like "hey I need some of the kickstarter money to pay for the books, I need to ship these books out now" and the responses I was getting were basically along the lines of "ohh uhh we can't give it to you all at once, so only ship like 20 books or less per week and we'll send you the money you spent, after you ship them!" and it was so, so sketchy but we were so worn out by then we just wanted it to be over Hive Staff A: I had no clue about that, August. I am so sorry. Shay: Important to note that misappropriation of funds contributed for a specific purpose is known as "breach of trust," which is extremely illegal in Canada at least. American law may differ somewhat but I suspect there is an equivalent there. Hive Staff A: To be clear, this was all back in what....2014? Meaghan (direct reply to August): Fuck me, that's revolting
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
I blocked out and labelled Hive staff participants in this conversation because they were trying to be helpful, acknowledged that this extremely kind of traumatizing several years of my life happened, and WHY it happened. I have no beef with any of them personally, they didn't steal from us.
August: Around there yes Hive Staff B: I'm sorry August. That really sucks, and absolutely wasn't fair to you. It's something that will not happen again to anyone else. Shay: Yeah we were paying out of pocket eventually, just to try and fulfill our promises to backers. Still couldn't get through all of them. Lost a lot of longtime supporters. It was rough. Hive Staff B: Not to say we're not still dealing with the damage from the previous management as we try and fulfill current Kickstarters. Just...we gotta try and fix it, s'all. Hive Staff A (direct reply to Shay): I am so, so damn sorry. Shay: To be honest, the lack of a proper bookkeeping framework (and legal advisor, Christ) is a major factor once again, here "The boss did a bad thing because she thought she was allowed to and it fucked everything up" is not at all a unique occurrence, especially in first-time or rapidly-growing businesses. August (direct reply to Hive Staff A): not to bring this back so soon, but the wording of this made something click in my head that had not until this moment. Proceeds? Did we even HAVE proceeds? Because what Xell communicated to me was that the kickstarter had 'miscalculated' what shipping would cost from Canada, so we 'blew through all of it' and hive 'covered the rest'--I did not question this at the time because it made sense with the runaround we'd been given, but like...was that even true? or did xell just say that and keep whatever was left after it was finally all shipped? because we made zero profit on that, according to Xell. Shay: No, yeah, we never saw a dime from that. Hive Staff A (direct reply to August): At this point, it's near-impossible to answer. I don't even think our current bank accounts were open in 2016, and Kickstarter has locked down all older backer reports. We can put in a request to reopen those, but tracking money itself is something I'm not sure can be done. I know, it's a bullshit answer. If you two are comfortable with it, I can ask Isa for what she remembers about it. My involvement with your kickstarter was the book layout. August: honestly I have no idea if any of us would ever be able to know because of how much Xell buying a car would have made a mess of everything on top of all of the other messes those 3 kickstarters made. it is going to come down to a situation where Xell can say "no, that's true, hive payed for shipping because your kickstarter ran out of money" and there's not really anything any of us could ever say to dispute that at this point. Hive Staff A: That's correct. And that majorly sucks. Hive Staff B: It's not something we're happy about. It's why neither Xel nor Isa are involved in these decisions any longer. Shay: Well, I mean, we could force a deeper investigation, but that would involve literally pressing charges and I don't think that's in anyone's best interests. August: oof, well, let's move on with the air table stuff if we can? I need to go to sleep soon and there were some questions on there I wanted to see the answers for [depression emoji]
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
Why didn't I leave? I just wanted to make comics. I was so overwhelmed, and outside of this kickstarter, they were still hosting me, providing tech support (another issue covered by the letter) and giving me traffic I wouldn't be otherwise getting. The kickstarter was over and done.
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
I thought that if I stuck around long enough, they'd get to me, they'd rebuild my site like they kept promising, they'd actually advertise us again, things would get better. I joined the guild when it became clear that we were going to have to FORCE those changes if we wanted them to happen.
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
And for 3 years, we sincerely tried to collectively bring up issues, offer solutions, offer to pick up slack, offered unpaid labour, because we wanted conditions to improve not just for ourselves, but for hive's entire catalogue.
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
It was both infuriating and soothing to discover that it wasn't just us experiencing this, and we wanted to make things better. We were willing to put in that work if hive staff was willing to work with us!
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by femonologue
skullamity.bsky.social
But the revelation of the massive debt hive managed to accrue by leap-frogging the funds from an endless line of kickstarters to pay for the last, all leading back to that money pit Xell created when she decided to BUY A CAR with kickstarter proceeds?
January 12, 2026 at 6:34 PM