I met this fucker when we were five at kindergarten. He was, if my memory serves me correctly, playing with a wooden train set and it was my first day there. I was much less shy then, I know that for a fact. I also have very few memories that far back, they’re spots of activity. But I know we bonded pretty damn fast.It’s Tommy’s fault me and my brother got a c64 and later an Amiga 500, just as it’s his fault we both got far too obsessive about typefaces and bad movies. Well, the bad movies might have been my fault. And despite popular consensus among the teachers when we were 12, it was not our fault other people dragged younger kids to the electric cow fence to metal manhole cover contraption. While we did to the original connection, we had no intention to be henches to the people who bullied us and left way before it escalated.
Anyway. I don’t think I’d be anywhere close to where I am today or the person I am if it hadn’t been for Tommy. We were both fuck-ups according to conventional norms about work and life in general. He went the way of being a self-employed workaholic at the age of 17, we were still in school when he started his first business. For me it took longer to even find anything I were good at but he supported every misstep (and even proper ones that actually worked). And while he got kids, a divorce, and was diagnosed as bipolar in addition to having Crohn’s disease, I tried a brief spell of photography for a living, higher studies, regular depression and anxiety, and now illustration.
br>
All in all, I think each of us alone made up 66% of a functional human being. Only with the other person's help did we manage give the impression that we were better. And I’d rather be that fuck-up that needs the help than trying to be a functional person alone. Tommy died, probably in his sleep, last Wednesday by Crohn's complications. (I really hope his latest doctor loses his job. Seriously. “You’ve got Crohn's, you’re supposed to be in pain” should never be okay to say to a patient. Teaching people to ignore their pains will only lead to them ignoring something really serious.)
I would rather have my friend back than most anything. I keep thinking he's going to come through the door and ask if anyone is awake, despite he knows for a fact I'm not because I can't keep normal hours. And I know he won't and fuck that knowledge. Thankfully, I spend the weekend with friends. It made it easier to focus on other stuff, at least for a while. Because the crying has made me exhausted.
Well, since the last time, all those ages ago, I’ve been doing some RPG stuff. I’ve been designing a food based game that uses Cortex Prime. Think both God of Cookery as well as Chef. It’s light-hearted and dramatic and it will hopefully be great.
On the other side of the coin, I’ve also been creating a Genesys campaign. A dark fantasy that still don’t dip into the grim portion of the genre. Hope is important and while cynicism can be fun at times, it tends to be both very limited in scope as well as.emotional depth. So fuck grim and lets be sincere in our games. (Incidentally, this opinion has doubled now.)
The setting has stuff like raven shepherds, library dryads, and nymphs that are radical environmentalists. The soundtrack while writing it has entirely been P.J. Harvey songs.
I don't think I can make a proper playlist for this letter. But I do have a song if you want to cry along.
Thank you for reading and I hope it finds you in... a health I suppose. I do hope it was a good one though. Outside of this, there's always bluesky or the links to all things Internets (including art commission info).