January 29th Update: Giveaway with RDR1, RDR2, and SteamWorld Heist
As I have become a cowboy I am now giving away cowboy games. Thanks.
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As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a headless suit. To me, being a suit was better than being President of the United States. Even before I first wandered into the chatroom for an after-school troll, I knew what I wanted for my avatar.
I have always taken this form. Back in the bad old days I used imagery specifically from Elite Beat Agents. I made this in Paint based on a few different sprite rips and cleaned it up one pixel at a time.
But over time I moved away from my EBA origins. I have no artistic talent to speak of — I struggle very much with pen and pencil, digital or otherwise. But wanting something truly original, I made something all myself. It looked terrible, but it was my own work and I was proud of that.
But I knew it could be better. Over the next few months I saved to properly pay an artist to redraw the art from scratch with some actual talent. I started with an artist here I really admired who produced a sketch for me to use as a basis going forward.
Then I found an artist on Twitter who I asked to redraw it however they wanted and I would pay them regardless of the result. She returned me this, which I wore briefly as my first professionally drawn avatar.
But I didn't love the posture and wanted something a little more tradmasc, so I found a fledgling artist who I was impressed with specifically because of how they drew men's fashion. I approached them with my concept and they brought back the first "perfect" version of the avatar, which I wore from then on. To a lot of people on the internet, this is what I look like. This is Finale Fireworker.
But mid-2019 to mid-2020 was a rough time for me. I went through a lot of things that really pushed me to the brink of my personal fortitude. Without paying too much mind to the diversion, I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. But I did. And as I worked through this stuff, I felt like it was time for a change. It was time to switch out of the suit — at least for a while — and in to business casual. A very talented friend of mine redrew my avatar yet again as a gift into the shirt and suspenders I wear to today.
My avatar, my consistent face online, has followed me through many formative years of my life. It is how I've presented and how I've been perceived for close to 10 years. At no point in this continuum have I ever looked any different online and I never doubted what I looked like. This was me.
Enter @SuccessfulStra3, a random account that showed up on my timeline as a promoted tweet: https://twitter.com/successfulstra3?s=21
They are a mundane account. They have 7,000 followers and mostly tweet vague affirmations and aspirations about "business" and "doing business." But their avatar is... me.
I know logically that this is not really me. I am not a creative genius. It is very normal and natural that someone else would have come up with this idea at some point. The imagery probably occurred to them just as easily as it occurred to me. I do not believe they stole it from me or that my insignificant existence had any influence on this equally insignificant Twitter account.
And yet I feel... compromised. To look on my own image and see not myself has thrust me coldly in to the reflecting pool. What do I do now? Who am I? If someone else can be me, who was I ever? Can I still be me knowing that someone else is too?
I have seen my doppelgänger. I rehearsed this moment so many times in my head. I knew that if I faced them with imperfect courage I would end up trapped in the Black Lodge — maybe forever. And now that they are here I know I have failed this test of character. By virtue of their existence, my own existence has ceased.
Really makes you think. Maybe I should reinvent myself.
As I have become a cowboy I am now giving away cowboy games. Thanks.
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As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a headless suit. To me, being a suit was better than being President of the United States. Even before I first wandered into the chatroom for an after-school troll, I knew what I wanted for my avatar.
I have always taken this form. Back in the bad old days I used imagery specifically from Elite Beat Agents. I made this in Paint based on a few different sprite rips and cleaned it up one pixel at a time.
But over time I moved away from my EBA origins. I have no artistic talent to speak of — I struggle very much with pen and pencil, digital or otherwise. But wanting something truly original, I made something all myself. It looked terrible, but it was my own work and I was proud of that.
But I knew it could be better. Over the next few months I saved to properly pay an artist to redraw the art from scratch with some actual talent. I started with an artist here I really admired who produced a sketch for me to use as a basis going forward.
Then I found an artist on Twitter who I asked to redraw it however they wanted and I would pay them regardless of the result. She returned me this, which I wore briefly as my first professionally drawn avatar.
But I didn't love the posture and wanted something a little more tradmasc, so I found a fledgling artist who I was impressed with specifically because of how they drew men's fashion. I approached them with my concept and they brought back the first "perfect" version of the avatar, which I wore from then on. To a lot of people on the internet, this is what I look like. This is Finale Fireworker.
But mid-2019 to mid-2020 was a rough time for me. I went through a lot of things that really pushed me to the brink of my personal fortitude. Without paying too much mind to the diversion, I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. But I did. And as I worked through this stuff, I felt like it was time for a change. It was time to switch out of the suit — at least for a while — and in to business casual. A very talented friend of mine redrew my avatar yet again as a gift into the shirt and suspenders I wear to today.
My avatar, my consistent face online, has followed me through many formative years of my life. It is how I've presented and how I've been perceived for close to 10 years. At no point in this continuum have I ever looked any different online and I never doubted what I looked like. This was me.
Enter @SuccessfulStra3, a random account that showed up on my timeline as a promoted tweet: https://twitter.com/successfulstra3?s=21
They are a mundane account. They have 7,000 followers and mostly tweet vague affirmations and aspirations about "business" and "doing business." But their avatar is... me.
I know logically that this is not really me. I am not a creative genius. It is very normal and natural that someone else would have come up with this idea at some point. The imagery probably occurred to them just as easily as it occurred to me. I do not believe they stole it from me or that my insignificant existence had any influence on this equally insignificant Twitter account.
And yet I feel... compromised. To look on my own image and see not myself has thrust me coldly in to the reflecting pool. What do I do now? Who am I? If someone else can be me, who was I ever? Can I still be me knowing that someone else is too?
I have seen my doppelgänger. I rehearsed this moment so many times in my head. I knew that if I faced them with imperfect courage I would end up trapped in the Black Lodge — maybe forever. And now that they are here I know I have failed this test of character. By virtue of their existence, my own existence has ceased.
Really makes you think. Maybe I should reinvent myself.
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