last halloween, i played house of ashes with my partner, their sister, and their sister's girlfriend. we all picked our characters and passed the controller around in couch multiplayer mode. obviously, i picked salim cuz he was the only one who wasn't us military lmao and i decided i needed to protect him at all costs. my partner played jason (cute) which thank god cuz they picked the best choices to make him feel really bad about himself hehe
i really enjoyed the story and discovered there was a fan community when i deep dived into the tumblr tag for aesthetic gif sets. i was so confused by how jason/salim could work that i started writing my fic home with you to see if i can come up with a story for them to believably get together. i don't think i did a bad job! it was the first fic i wrote/finished
now for the serious part and the point of this post - last year, i was going thru a major depressive episode bordering on suicidal due to some unfortunate-bordering-on-devastating things happening in my life. i was isolating myself and barely getting out of bed or eating. what was rough was that halloween is my favorite holiday so it was hard to get into the headspace to enjoy it until we got around to playing the game together
i found an online community during a time when i felt very disconnected with the community i used to have IRL and has since disintegrated due to the pandemic. i've lost a lot of friends over these past 2-3 years and it's still hard some days as i am trying to recover from a lifelong struggle with trauma
however, i've met some great people thru hoa and it's given me the inspiration/outlet to draw and write again when i hadn't done so for years. i look back at my first drawings for hoa a year ago and how much i've improved since then, even in writing. now i'm getting the itch to create original stories and take my art/writing seriously. being in fandom this past year has helped a lot in my recovery including safely exploring my gender and sexuality, trauma, educating myself on the world around me, and renewing old passions like learning about history. i love meeting new people from around the world and connecting together to enjoy something we love, to have fun, and relate to each other when so much terribleness is happening all over the place. kinda feels like the point of house of ashes and maybe that's why i love it so much
i'm going to start setting up my patreon and ways for folks to throw me some money if they're feeling generous. recently i had to quit a very toxic job due to racism/ableism and i'm not sure when i'll be in a good place to work full-time again. i wish i could draw and write every day for y'all and live comfortably but it's hard working solely as an artist nowadays. still, i have projects planned for the future - some horror related, kink related, original characters - and i hope y'all stick around. i'm not done with HOA yet
