I'm so sorry to hear about you being laid off from Obsidian- the industry is so tough right now :(
thank you. more than one friend has reached out on tumblr to ask, so i thought i should set aside the time to say something about it. it's been enormously meaningful and humbling to see coworkers, friends, and people i consider mentors praising my writing and advocating for reasons to hire me. reading dozens of tributes to your work and exemplary character gives the impression of watching the slideshow at your own funeral.
i alluded to this in a linkedin (ugh) post: it's hard to lose any job. it's especially hard to lose a job at the studio that i had hoped to write for since i was nineteen years old. the conventional gamedev wisdom is not to get attached to a "dream studio," and to prioritize the people and projects you want to work with instead. but i do love the people. they understood me creatively, they believed i had potential, they gave me community, they got me out of my shell. even when the harsh realities of project stress set in - every game gets chaotic at some point, even the good ones - my desire to do good work and do right by my teammates saw me through.
to their credit, i don't believe anyone in obsidian leadership wanted this to happen. on the contrary: i imagine they fought like hell to prevent it. that does not change the reality that i now live in limbo, looking for another job, hoping to return someday. i have those surreal experiences i imagine all newly-laid-off people have. i should be in a meeting right now. i shouldn't buy that. i still had my job the last time i wore this shirt. i devoted so much effort to my last obsidian project that i have no idea what personal writing i should work on to fill the void. even if i had something, the thought of what it would take to finish it exhausts me, and i would have no idea how to get it published. in some ways, i no longer know who i am.
but my mother did not drag us both out of the mire of homelessness and fight to win me a college scholarship for me to give up now. i owe it to both her and my future to figure all this out. sometimes you're lucky. the rest of the time, you merely have to be unkillable.
