Éric

Éric has had an eclectic career which ranges from casino dealer to canal boat captain to radio station DJ. Since 2009, he’s worked as a desktop publisher for the federal government. During his off time, he works as a freelance typesetter for various Canadian-based authors and publishers, roasts gourmet flavoured coffee, runs several pen-and-paper role-playing games, writes, and helps run JenEric-Designs.ca (Home of the TravellingTARDIS.com).

He lives in Ottawa, Ontario with his author wife, daughter, and son.

Dear Dragon – End of Grade 1

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Dear Dragon,

Congratulations! Yesterday you finished grade one.

Everything is going to be different now. You’re going to in-person school for grade two and you are going to love it. You’ll make friends and do all kinds of fun stuff.

I’m going to miss you. It’ll be the first time since I took parental leave for Adrien that I don’t see you almost every day. The world has kinda sucked the past 4 years (arguably more), but I’m thankful that I was able to spend so much extra time with you.

I know things change and I know you’re getting to that age where parents aren’t cool, but I hope as you grow older you’ll still have time to play videogames with me, cook/bake, and want me to read you stories.

You’ve learned so much the past three years of home/virtual school and that’s all because of your amazing teachers and your hard work. I know we pushed you and I know it wasn’t always easy. You still have issues with emotional regulation (but let’s be honest, so do I), you still have to learn that it’s okay to be wrong (I’m doing me best to show by example on this one), and you have a long time ahead to learn those things and so many more.

I know you’re excited to go to school, learn new things, and grow up. Just maybe don’t be in too much of a hurry just yet.

I love you little Dragon,

Papa

Love, Simon– JenEric Movie Review

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How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2018 film Love, Simon.

Story

A modern take on a letter writing romance with some very heavy themes. I get how important and intense coming out can be, but this movie seemed to have trouble deciding if it was a tragic coming out movie, teen angst movie, or romance.

Score: 0.5

Characters

Pretentious wealthy teen suburban hipsters. The characters are mostly likeable but extremely judgemental. Lots of emphasis on how people look and equating that to their moral characters. Not a fan of the nerd bashing or fatphobia.

That being said; the parents were great, the vice principal super cringe, and the friendships touching.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

When emotions are high and characters actually talk to each other, the dialogue is spot on. The coming out to his parents is heart wrenching to watch as a parent. I also loved the speech Simon gives to his blackmailer.

The rest of the time, the dialogue feels like all other YA intellectually pretentious films. (Someone should take dialogue from this, Perks of Being a Wallflower, and anything John Green; and make an internet quiz to guess who said it.)

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

The cinematography is dated and looks like bad knock off of John Hughes. The use of text and email is clunky and awkward. The camera work is simultaneously too slow and too jerky.

The music is not good enough for a film with a main character who’s a music snob, but isn’t bad.

Score: 0.5

Fun

The amount of angst in this movie was palpable and the amount of cringe was painful. The letters were fun and I liked the pacing of the movie. Coming out isn’t easy and I feel like this film puts all the blame for that on the main character and not enough on society.

Score: 0.5

Overall

A coming of age pseudo-romance populated by pretentious teens making bad choices. The movie does a great job of showing the emotional difficulties of coming out, but makes it feel like it’s mostly the gay man’s fault for complicating it.

Final Score: 2.5 Stars out of 5

Vote JenEric for the Aurora Awards

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Hello friends, family, and fans!

The voting round is NOW OPEN!!!

Thanks to all who nominated. You really made a difference.

In case you missed it, the Voters package is available for download! Make sure you’re logged in!

The four categories in which Jen, Éric, and family are nominated:

  • Category 2 – Best YA Novel
    • Black Hole Radio – Ka’Azula by Ann Birdgenaw
  • Category 7 – Best Related Work
    • Nothing Without Us Too by Cait Gordon and Talia C. Johnson (Jen has a short story Semper Ubi Sub Ubi in this one!)
  • Category 9 – Best Fan Writing/Publication (these will not be included in the voters package, as they are available online)

Something to remember this time around; order matters. In order to concentrate our voting power, Éric and I have agreed to focus on The Travelling TARDIS, as it is more well-known in the community. Therefore, please vote for it first, and the JenEric Movie Reviews second.

Voting is June 17 – July 29, 2023. We’ll write a reminder post before it ends. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!

Thank you all so much for your time, attention, and support. It means the world to us!

JenEric

Health Update June 2023

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Hello family, friends, and fans,

A lot and very little has happened since my April update.

Let’s start with good news. I have a date for my MRI on July 14th. I also have a date to go with (Jen will be driving me. With two kids you must take whatever you can as a date.)

What’s Going on with Treatment

It looks like my time with the OWN treatment team will be ending in mid July. I’ve been doing exercises to strengthen the muscles, physiotherapy to loosen the muscles, and some therapy to think about muscles.

The therapy has been helping the most, stress relief and permission to be selfish and self care are good. I’ve also been given some techniques to control my emotional spirals and overreactions.

The exercises and physio have been maybe helping. I have better control of my fine motor skills and my physio says my muscles are looser. They’re going to give me a home routine.

We’re also working towards getting me back to full time work instead of my old schedule of 30 minutes on and 30 minutes off.

How am I Feeling

My pain is steady. That sounds bad, but it’s actually a good thing. I’m not experiencing any massive flares. I’m still at a 6-7 pain level, but no more jumping to 8 and feeling sick.

The numbness in my arms, hands, and face are still there and haven’t changed. The vision problems I’m having with my left eye are still there. I’ve had a couple of really scary vertigo episodes where it felt like the entire planet shifted 90 degrees. Not fun.

My mysterious illness where I have bowel cramps, fever, aches and pains, and weakness; came back again. I think it might be allergy and / or overdoing it related. I’m not sure. I went to the ER in 2018 for it and they found nothing, I saw my family doctor and he did blood and feces testing and he found nothing, I saw a virtual doctor and he told me I was fat. My family doctor said we’d deal with it if it happens often, but I’m not sure what that can be defined as. It only happens once or twice a year.

Now we wait and see what the MRI says. WSIB will be washing their hands of me in July and I’ll be doing what I can to manage the pain. They say that my body is reacting well and that the pain will reduce over time. I hope they’re right.

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

Catch Up on the Baker City Mysteries

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@ericdesmaraisauthor

The Mystery of the Dancing Lights book four of The Baker City Mysteries is coming out early September 2023. Yay! #bakercity #Elizabeth #mystery #ya #book #booktok #fantasy

♬ original sound – Éric Desmarais
Book Four of A Baker City Mysteries is coming out this September. Now is the perfect time to catch up on the other books.

The Mystery of the Dancing Lights by Éric Desmarais is available now!
Physical from Canadian indie bookstores, physical from Indigo, electronic version

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before – JenEric Movie Review

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How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2018 film To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.

Story

A very simple twist on “fake dating”, the story isn’t all that exciting or interesting on it’s own and follows the usual YA romance beats.

Score: 0

Characters

The characters and actors in this are extremely compelling. Especially the secondary characters and family. Interesting and make you want more of their story.

Score: 1

Dialogue

The dialogue vacillates between the usual precociousness of YA characters and some outright hilarious lines. The heart to heart moments are by far the strongest and hold the movie together with a lot of emotion.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

The visuals are the usual Netflix stylised shots. Nothing special.

The music is unmemorable but not bad.

Score: 0.5

Fun

There’s a lot of cringe but love wins out once the characters communicate and there’s some fun scenes in between. It’s not great but it’s not bad.

Score: 0.5

Overall

A perfectly average YA romance with the always fun “fake dating” trope. The humdrum story, visuals, and music are elevated by the sheer charisma of the characters and some excellent dialogue.

Final Score: 3 Stars out of 5

Alas, Fourteen Years is Far too Short a Time…

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Dear family, friends, and fans;

Roughly seventeen and a half years ago I met a geeky girl online ,and after chatting for a few weeks we decided to go on a date. It was awkward. I was late and talking about a girl I liked in my classes. She disappeared in the bookstore we started in. I asked her to help me pick a grad photo. She talked about her exes and how she wasn’t sure it was over.

Despite all that, we talked about everything and anything. We shared banana cake and I walked her home. We kissed in the cold outside her house for way longer than was appropriate and a few weeks later we decided to be exclusive.

It wasn’t an easy start and I’m surprised we survived that first year. I’m very insecure (I have RSD) and it felt like we came from two very different worlds. The only thing that really saved us was that we talked about everything.

We’ve been married now fourteen years and we’ve both been through a lot, both good and bad. I really think it’s our quantity of communication that has saved our relationship. We might not have always been talking about the things we should have, but we were still talking. Sometimes until way too late at night

Jen is my wife, my best friend, and the best business/writing partner I could ask for.

To paraphrase Bilbo Baggins, (in words not spirit) “Alas, fourteen years is far too short a time to live among such an excellent and admirable wife.”

I know that if we keep talking, we’ll be able to enjoy each other for a long time to come. Even if we don’t get much sleep.

I love you Jen!

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – JenEric Movie Review

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How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2023 film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

Story

This story felt like every D&D campaign I’ve read from Wizard of the Coast without being derivative, bland, or predictable.

There was a lot of worldbuilding and character set up, and I loved every second of it.

Score: 1

Characters

The characters are well defined in their quick backstory introductions, but I’m not sure how well someone who doesn’t know the game would understand what they can do. (My father-in-law was as confused as Doric why Edgin was useful.) Having not played much of the system after 3.5 edition, I spent a long time trying to figure out what they could do and what their classes were.

The actors were perfect in their roles and the character development was better than most D&D sessions.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

This was the perfect balance between epic and cheesy. The dialogue was perfectly delivered.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

The dedication to practical effects was a welcome change. They filmed a real volcano!? Everything was stunning and I liked that the spells weren’t too flashy or overdone. It gave the world a sort of grounding that made it feel more realistic.

The music was a great combination of epic fantasy (honouring scores like Lord of the Rings) and of action. I liked the slight Celtic flair to it.

Score: 1

Fun

This was fun from one end to the other. My daughter complained there were no dungeons or dragons at the beginning, but loved it once they got to the Underdark.

I enjoyed this immensely and can’t wait to re-watch it.

Score: 1

Overall

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves toes the line between catering to long time fans and being accessible to casual movie goers. It doesn’t always succeed, but it does a fantastic job overall. This is an excellent adventure movie with wonderful characters. More then worth watching several times.

Final Score: 4.5 Stars out of 5

Hate, Wrath, and Pride

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Hello friends, family, and fans,

I truly think that people are fundamentally good but there are those who are consumed by hate. They justify their hate with religion, pseudo-science, anecdotes, or false-morality; but underneath it’s fear turned sour. They create an “other” that is wrong in some way and fixate on them to a terrifying level, dehumanizing entire groups of people and attacking them.

Over the past 15 years of blogging, I have tried to be honest, passionate, and open. Events in my life from the past year have made me rethink my online presence and advocacy. The anonymity of the internet can embolden those who hate to commit terrible acts.

Because of the current backlash against the 2slgbtqia+ community, it is important for those of us who can, to share our pride in our identities. I’ve mentioned before that I’m bisexual and this month is Pride month. So here I am, a queer-bisexual cis-man, who uses he/him pronouns.

I’m happy with who I am and proud of what I went through to get to here. If my pride and visibility can help others, then I have a responsibility to speak up.

If you only know a little about Pride, here are a few places to get some more information:

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

Bullet Train – JenEric Movie Review

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How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2022 film Bullet Train

Story

A fun mix of mystery, action, and absurd comedy; this movie is extremely well plotted. Nothing is wasted even the throwaway gags.

I normally find excessive flashbacks tedious, but it was done perfectly here and even manages to mock itself.

Score: 1

Characters

The absolute strength of the movie is in the characters. They are almost all killers and all of them likable, even those you’re not supposed to like.

The relationship arc between ladybug and his handler is excellent and the emotional journey he goes on is extremely relatable.

Score: 1

Dialogue

This is a very verbose movie and I’m totally here for it. I look forward to re-watching it and paying closer attention to the details.

Lots of excellent quips, monologues, and pseudo-psychology; all very entertaining.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

The visual style is colourful, exciting, and vibrant. The action quick and punchy. The camerawork is excellent, considering it is all supposed to be on a train.

The Japanese versions of American pop songs, along with the score, set a perfect tone for the movie.

Score: 1

Fun

This is a rated R movie and I watched it on my own when the kids went to sleep. It was exactly what I needed to relax. It’s violent, funny, and a lot of fun.

Score: 1

Overall

A fantastic, violent, and funny movie with all the mystery of an Agatha Christie and all the irreverent humour of Deadpool. The actors pull out all the stops and despite the over the top action, the film never feels inauthentic. Seriously, go watch this.

Final Score: 5 Stars out of 5*

*A 5 star review doesn’t mean the movie was perfect nor that it is perfect for everyone but it is a movie I believe is as close to perfect as possible.