#ANYWAYS I GOT THE ARTBOOK THATS WHAT MATTERS

[silverselfshippingchaos]

GUYSSS I GOT THE F.F16 ARTBOOK TODAY AJAJQHDJQHD V.IVIAN LOOKS SO GOOD ON HER ONE SINGULAR PAGE 😫😫😫

[feline-evil]

Its da freaking new year baby

I mean it turned new year like 13 hours and thirty minutes ago for me i was just busy and didn't post here at the time. Anyways.

2023 has been A Lot for me! On one hand my wrist issues finally fully caught up to me and it's one of the first years i've not been able to draw as much during which has been. Very hard. It's been a year of health issues and my body kinda failing me in a lotta regards so it's not been great on that front. But it's also the first year i got to meet my boyfriend in person, twice!!! And realise how much more beautiful and kind and loving life can be, and how much i wanna survive onwards and upwards and do wicked gay shit with that man in future years, it's the year that being so loved has given me the courage to make BIG FUCKING RISKS and plan for BIG FUCKING CHALLENGES in upcoming years, and thats awesome. I couldn't be the man i have been this year without him, i really couldn't. I'm so grateful to finally have a partner and friends and love and gentleness, it is something that was so sorely missing in my life and it is something that's keeping me going even in the darker months.

It's also the year i took risks in other stuff too, which i never could've done without my bf's support, and now i've been able to work on so many things for The Hotel Podcast and thats fucking AWESOME?? I GET TO MAKE STUFF FOR THE SHOW I LOVE?? I did the artbook and we got to do the second calendar which ruuuuled, i made a postcard, i've done some other stuff ;), i made a 3d background and learnt some video editing for it; i've accomplished so much even against my body and wrist failing and i feel so so proud of that, and no matter how things go i wanna keep trying to do more. I feel like i'm finally showing what i can do. I hope people can see how much effort and will goes into what i do, i hope it pays off and that you enjoy it!

I wish i could say i left this year on a high note due to all that good that's happened to me and i mostly am absolutely. But in all honesty i also went to sleep last night filled with a palpable dread, this past week i realised someone close to me has, without getting into it to a degree i'm not willing to share online, gone down a pipeline to become a person i'm not comfortable with while i've been busy elsewhere. I went to bed knowing that either 2024 would have to be a year of potentially risky confrontation, of running, or of begrudgingly resigning myself to making sure i isolate anyone i care about away from. This. So thats a shadow hanging over me at the moment, and is one that has soured my week a little. I don't know what 2024 holds in regards to sorting this, it's a little scary.

I am going to be 27 this year, in February! And as i get closer and closer to thirty i realise that (while time isn't running out for me, for any of us) i really would like to move on into thriving rather than just surviving the years, and that part of that thriving needs to be transitioning and becoming independent from my parents. Of course the former is complicated due to the fact i am not able to be out to everyone in my life and even just starting the path to transitioning would out me and potentially destroy a part of my life that has been there for 26 years. There's also of course the fact i live in the uk and transitioning here is going to be a ten year waiting list if i'm even lucky and they deem me trans enough to transition l o l. So as you can imagine, thats complex and hard to figure out! On one hand i should start the process asap BECAUSE its such a long process here, but on the other hand i don't know how to handle my own safety and comfort in regards to being out to those i currently am not, and i'm not sure how my mental (and honestly physical) health would handle the fallout. The latter is complicated of course due to being broke, uneducated, physically and mentally unwell and a myriad of other factors; we don't live in a world where you can afford a home or to feed yourself anymore! So! Yknow!! Unlikely i'll be moving out anytime soon!

What i am doing at least is trying to thrive where i can, like dandelions growing in cracks the pavement may be unyielding to me at this moment but i can find the soft dirt inbetween; transitioning and independence may not be possible right now but i can continue to do my work and try to succeed there, i can make my room better for me (which i have done with finally getting a new bed after the one i had since i was a child grew no good), i can spend more time doing what i love out the house (visiting places, seeing my boyfriend, ect ect), and i can take what i can when i can. Maybe i'll try to learn to drive this year! I'm not sure i trust myself on the roads, but maybe i can learn to. And all of this is progress towards those final goals, even if i can't so much as step on the first rungs of the ladder towards them yet. I also take solace in knowing that for every dark cloud over me that makes my life feel so uncertain and hard to make it through there is incredible sunshine too; that even if the year is hard and cruel as they so often are i will still be loved i will still have friends and i will still get to smile. And that even if i can't accomplish big goals, a lot of small goals accomplished over many many bad years will build up, and one day i'll be free. And that's something.

My first hope for 2024 is THAT MY HEALTH GIVES ME A BREAK, NO MORE HEALTH SCARES PLEASE, and that perhaps i'll be able to even get some answer's and help for my physical health. My second is that my courage pays off and i succeed at flying alone for the first time to the states to be with my love! My third is that the year is kinder, and that i can make more art, maybe even regain some of the independence i had when my wrist was ok enough to let me do art as a job. My fourth is that i laugh a lot, and smile and have joyous moments with loved ones and indulge in what i love with unabashed and unashamed joy! And my fifth is that i get to do good for others, because even if i can't get out, even if i have to survive instead of thrive a little longer, i can at least try and help when i can.

Happy 2024, my chest hurts, my joints ache, but i'm still kicking and i will continue on forever. Bastards aren't getting free of me yet, i'm persistent. I haven't even ridden every rollercoaster in the UK yet.

[actualbird]

Hihi zak!! Been a while, love the cookies, very zakcore, hope they were as delicious as they looked

(Um.. artbook spoilers? LMAO)

Nonetheless I am here to sob and wail over luke pearce yet again. someone on twitter(@/chanuanzi i believe? shoutout to them) posted pages from the artbook, and theyre all in chinese so i cant get extra context, but i can see with my eyes my two wonderful somewhat functioning eyes and theres art and i saw so many lukes HES SO????!?! Found out the key has feather and fire motifs which is SO HIM and i believe his phone has a sherlock tobacco pipe for some reason(?did he make his phone?? is there a brand of phone with a pipe logo in stellis?? is it his phones cover???) and his silly little socks and he still wears those godforsaken boots even in childhood bless him

theres also pages with all the other guys, AND MC!! The mc concepts looked so pretty!! Shes stunning and gorgeous no matter what. Alternate outfits for everyone,, little sketches of the guys with different emotions.. artem wink.. luke with a little cat mouth. All of which is lovely, very interesting to look at. Love how theres a specific sock drawing for all the boys, only god knows why is Vyn wearing sock garters (do you have to go that far for the aesthetic, vyn?), MARIUS COULDVE HAD A TATTOO?? No idea, i think so?? this is driving me insane. and did i mention everyone gets little alternate outfits… yeah.

Anyway, thanks for reading my rant of the day! Hope youre doing well zak! Sorry if this was incredibly long and incoherent </3 -K

hi k!! and hehe, thank u for the kind cookie words :DDD

and GOSH YEAH, ive been delightedly freaking out about all of the pics of the tot artbook ive been seeing on twt. linking one of the tweets below so others can see, check em out! i dont think u'll need a twitter to see these :D

every single luke detail has added like power to my life force i swear JKHVAKJSHFASFKA. and all of ur thoughts, UR SO RIGHT!!! out of all the details ive seen from the different pics tho, ive got so much to say!! and no idea how to order any of them orz

but heres some bits i really fixated on for some reason

(among them, yes, the socks JKHAVKJSHFA)

the socks rlly did something to me , im past saving

pls dont apologize for stuff being incoherent bc as u can see //gestures at this response. Same. maybe some other time when ive got more energy and more braincell, i can put it into words a bunch of the rlly cool things that struck me and Why from the artbook, but thats for another day mayhaps :'D

[nervousllikeme]

more dumb meta feelings about tlou2′s reception. no actual spoilers but vague

i feel bad for being alright with tlou2′s story! Like....yeah....I spent $80 (i WAS gonna get the ellie edition but then I had an epiphany like.....i don’t have anywhere to put that shit. it doesn’t make me any more or less a fan to own a small statue. at the end of the day i just wanted the artbook. I have part of her tattoo for god’s sake). Whenever you spend money on an entertainment venture it’s gonna be a gamble on whether or not you enjoy it! That’s just it babe! You spend money to see a movie, buy a game, go to a concert, you don’t know you’re gonna like it but you buy access to it anyway. But then people feel jipped and I get that. at least $60 is no small amount. And unfortunately that’s the standard new game price. devs gotta eat. gotta cover costs. make a profit. blah blah.

And yeah this is something people have been excited about for YEARS and feel disappointed by. I get that. I literally bought a ps4 the day after the e3 2018 footage to play this game. Maybe i feel more muted on it because it isn’t a shock, because i spoiled myself with the leaks months ago. I’ve had time to digest. Even if the plot points in those leaks weren’t 100% right. I don’t know. I’m not the type of person to get really reactionary in a negative or positive way with ANYTHING. Which also might be because I AM the type of person that reads the summaries of things before i watch/read/play them! I’m sorry! I usually like to sit and chew on it and live with it, think about it, think about the underlying messages. And i feel at odds with people decrying it as terrible. I don’t think that it is as far as I can tell from where I am/what I’ve read. Like....it’s about grey areas. So’s the first game. no one is all good or all bad. Everyone is deeply flawed and has their own reasons for doing what they do whether we agree with them, empathize with them, or think they’re evil and wrong. 

It does remind me of life is strange. my very last straw was the ending of farewell, which i thought was really phoned in. really contrived, misery porn i guess. and I’ve seen people call tlou2 misery porn. and I wonder what I’ll think when I experience it. LIS was, at that point in time to me, in the wrong because the devs across the board all seemed to want to torture this lesbian who I connected to very much. And I wonder how I’ll feel about what’ll happen to Ellie, who is a lesbian I connect to very much. I’m not sure that it’s a similar thing. the basic thing being that Chloe lived a normal world and her death was seen as the morally right choice. Ellie lives in a violent, starving world where...well, it’s morally bankrupt. but as a lesbian who lives in the normal world now, i’m interested to see what’ll happen. what reflection does this have to real life. will the lesbian be punished, essentially. I don’t think that thats where the game’s gonna go. 

but where was i. I cooled down, didn’t interact with life is strange for a while. very upset. but that didn’t change how i felt about the characters. Like...you can make good characters and a not so good story. So in going through that experience of realizing that hmmm....life is strange/before the storm isn’t actually that good plot wise and that the characters were what I really liked and connected to I feel like I’m more prepared to deal with tlou2 if the story does end up disappointing me. even though i spoiled myself and already know how it ends. you can read a map but not know what it’s like until you gget there, you know? I’m just not much of a fan of extreme negativity being voiced for a thing I still like. Or saying it’s ruined or whatever. Like...it’s not. I dunno. I’ve never really studied concepts of author ownership or whatever but in my eyes and how I come at art as an artist, this is what was made. nothing fans can do or say can change that. no matter if it’s bad or good or anything. just gotta deal with it. of course you can critique things and say what you didn’t like about it but your dissatisfaction isn’t going to change it and that’s the tone I get from people. like alright, you regret your purchase and you wish that you didn’t play it or it wasn’t made. I am sorry. may you find some good revisionist fanfic and hope to have some satisfaction from that, or may you take time to chill and find a story you do jive with. but the tone of “this game fucking sucks you ruined ellie and joel fuck naughty dog I trusted them i’m gonna post spoilers because i hate it” etc. etc. while is valid as a vent, isn’t gonna change anything about the game or how you feel about it. the only ones who can change it are the artists. and given the finality of a game like this on a development level, i don’t think there’s gonna be an update to change the ending. 

like I can’t change human nature. There’s more shit going on in the world more important than how people feel about a video game. so silly to spend time feeling bad that I like something that others are disappointed by. I just wish people wouldn’t run themselves ragged and get themselves worked up over a story. And like, I’ve done that too! I get it! I guess I’ve learned from past experiences of getting worked up that i can just walk away from it, selectively enjoy aspects of it. take time, digest it, note what i liked and didn’t like. and if i didn’t like a lot/most of it, okay! that’s fine. I can find other things I will like. if it’s something that was sentimental to me, got me through a rough time, what happens in a sequel doesn’t change what the first game did. like if a band has this really good album that got me through bad times and their next album isn’t so good and i don’t listen to them as much anymore....that’s okay! that doesn’t change my feelings on the first album! I don’t know. I have too many thoughts on things that don’t matter.