Shilling STALKER - Leaving The Wasteland
If you're here, most likely it means you wanted to know more about the details of my departure and more about me as a whole. To know who you're supporting and to know why you're supporting me.
First of all, I made a short tweet thread a while back that I felt made nothing clear but this: I want people to support me not because of where I am; but because of what I do. So, let's begin on that note; who am I?
Who Are You, STALKER?:
I am a 20 year old man living - and surviving - In The Socialist-Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, people call me the Rat and often Rat Joe or just Joe, but most importantly - to me - I am a content creator looking to make nice things for people to enjoy, these range from writing essays, doing memes, writing stories and doing art with my friend Joshua in both Unreal Engine 4 and Source Filmmaker.
I am also resident writer and somewhat of a visual artist for the Sins of A Solar Empire mod Sins of the Prophets (Quick example of my lore work above).
I used to be primarily made up of Halo content, but that changed partly due to the fact that I saw no challenge in making content in only one thing so I have been broadening my frontier and including a variety of different content.
For the most part, I have been starting a series of essay series called 'Gaming's Genesis Data Banks' where I hope to look back and games and not only review them but kind of understand more about them, be it design, gameplay, development, etc. Read my Medal of Honor article here
I am also an alright writer according to some, guessing that's why I am the current writer for Sins of The Prophets, HAH, nonetheless, these are the main things about me, I write.
But beyond that, I make art with my friend Joshua as I had mentioned before; above will be our latest commission for our good friend William (Pixelflare/Wangtime).
Although, why do I want to leave, why am I making this? Well, simple enough, I hate how this country has become and it has become far more difficult to live here every day that passes.
Obviously, it's grim down here, I won't go into the nitty gritty details either because of reasons; mostly because I do not like making myself a pity party. But the main reason that I would also like to leave is because of the fact that either me or someone like Kaleb can be sustained to a 30+ year jail sentence for 'Hate Speech', mostly if you speak against the government you get the short end of the stick.
But still; I want to emphasise this, don't support me because I am Venezuelan, support my work, so I can continue doing something I love even when I'm out.
You can also check some of my work clicking here; and here for art.
What Do You Actually Do Then?:
Well, it should be best if I break it down into a short list of things that I do and others that I wish to do.
I do:
Visual 3D Art
Written Essays
Video Game Reviews
Kind of an Author
Memes
etc
I want to do:
Video Essays
Creative Video Content on YouTube
Live Action Storytelling
Visual Storytelling
among other things
But enough about me for now, let's get onto those departure details!
Departure Connection:
Let's start with the basics, currently, I have planned a mid-March departure through the use of an airline called Estelar, which is a fairly new airline that offers a direct flight to Buenos Aires which is my destination.
The current prices for the flight are $700 which I should meet by then and a little more for obvious expenses departing and over there.
I need to get the rest of my papers in order but that is something that I should worry about, however, I only need two more things.
Alternative Routes:
In the event that I cannot pick a flight with Estelar, the alternative would be Copa Airlines which would be far more expensive, it would be a connection flight from Caracas to Brazil as I have understood it, then it would go from Brazil to Argentina. If all else fails, however, the last ditch effort would be to land travel which would be far less expensive but the risk of travel is somewhat higher at least until you successfully depart from Venezuela, my sister's husband used this and picked a direct flight from Brazil. He was stopped by the National Guard around four times and searched thoroughly. Obviously, I plan on taking my desktop whatever the cost, I cannot afford to stop working.
The Plan:
The plan is to settle down for a while with my sister and her husband and immediately start searching for a job to help sustain myself as soon as I am allowed. But beyond this, I should be able to settle down with my work here and beyond and try to juggle it with the other job, anything I find. However, the plan is to settle down until I am able to sustain myself on my own, whether through my written essays, future youtube work, Patreon, etc or through the juggling of both jobs.
My Work and Future:
Obviously, I will never stop doing what I actually love doing. Bringing content to you guys, that will always be a forefront and as long as I am able to do it, I will do it.
As for my future, the lines are somewhat blurred, but yet, I have a resolute plan of what I will expand upon to bring the highest quality content I can muster to every one of you. Whether it be from my future videos, or more essays and beyond. I have plans and those plans I definitely want to meet.
I also have the aspirations to go over to PAX this year, meet some of the best friends I have met online and to finally meet the team I work with at Slugfest Studios for the Sins of The Prophets mod. And every one of you that has helped me and supported me and plans to go there.
Support Me:
Of course, if you feel like supporting me through any of this after all of the information I have dished out, you will have a tidy and clean list of places where you can donate to me here!
Personal Work:
Art Commissions with EzzellVFX:
Project Catharsis - A Plan:
Well, now, for something a little different to close the article with some actual content.
Project Catharsis, previously named Operation March and Project March has been a project I have been working on for over 8 years now, most of it in my head.
This is a universe that has been very dear and close to my heart but I never truly had the courage to show it or to proof the fact that it is very real, but today I plan on giving you a glimpse of it through the art I have commissioned from my very good friend Rythaze and a small lore entry.
But first, a small, quick synopsis:
Project Catharsis is a pseudo survival/horror post-apocalyptic universe that is torn apart by nukes. It delves into the lives of those who are unlucky enough to be living in the apocalypse, as they start to recreate their nations in their own image, Catharsis will delve into the socio-political nature of a world turn to ash, while those who turned it to ash try to reclaim the land that they can keep.
For now, that is probably all I can say, the world has many surprises in store, and I hope to be able to flesh it out further if you all would allow me to in a series of posts I have dubbed Creator's Blog.
For now, I present you some lore:
A figure walked slowly, among the fog and mud his footsteps punctuated by the dirt as it splashed around him, his breathing slow and deliberate as it inched closer to a man; me, I was his prey, cornered and weakened crawling away from this. . . Figure.
Like a scorpion, he had just incapacitated most of my movement and I was ripe for the taking, crawling away as fast as I could. I heard the rattle of a sling, the figure had just slung a long, smoking, rifle around his back, breathing calmly as it looked down at me, his prey.
"The Extermination,"
He kicked my gut, as I heard him speak, I was suddenly spun onto my back, stopped from escaping as I laid upon mud and grass, struggling to breathe, my mask had been damaged, cracked and tore by the fabric, no doubt that would be the last thing in my mind as I peered through my broken visors, my chest wounded by a gunshot I perked up, in pain and looked at the figure, revealing a tall man that stood above me.
"That's what they called it."
The man lifted his arms in an almost mocking gesture as I coughed struggling to breathe before I saw him reach for his vest, the slight sound of metal shashing against stiff fabric was surely far too familiar. "When they ventured outside of their borders to reclaim the land, this is not something that they would've done before,"
"Ostanovite, pozhaluysta," I plead; stop, please.
The man, with a knife in hand, now moved to take a knee on the mud, my filter was leaking air and he could see it, nonetheless, he watched me closely with a knife in hand.
"They would only dare watch as we burned from their tall skyscrapers and their high tech society. It wasn't important to venture out into the world, we were burning, right? We were surviving after they had unleashed everything they had upon us."
The man inched closer to me in his knelt position, then he rasps out, "People guessed wrong, Wendigo,"
I tried to immediately move away from him, but the pain was too much and my vision was clouded behind my green shattered visors.
The man, immediately taking a tighter hold of the knife in his hand before slamming the hilt upon my shattered visor, breaking it whole, taking a hold of my head by my hazmat covers with his free hand, and I felt his knee moving to rest upon my wounded chest, groaning in pain I felt the tip of the knife to my throat pressing, my breathing became far more erratic and I knew I was a dead man anyway, my mask was doing nothing to protect me.
"But that's only where the catharsis of man truly began."
The knife slowly began to puncture my muddied white suit's neck, I began to struggle and to push back, groaning in pain as I felt the sting of the knife entering my skin, but my efforts were futile. . .
"When they ventured deep into our world, unleashing true hell upon us behind the guise of purification for the new world order."
"I was one of you, exterminators, and yet I. . . just. . . doomed you." The man stared, looking upon his deed as I struggled, the knife in my neck as I began to gag and choke with my own blood, he then pulled the knife from my neck and I felt the release, my hands instantly moving to cover my neck to salvage whatever little hope I still had.
"How ironic, isn't it? The epitome of an exterminator; sobrat."
I watched as the man slowly stood back up, taking the knife back into the piece of fabric he had originally taken it from, struggling with my own life.
"I truly do wonder if any of this was worth it to you."
My vision became blurrier by the second, I only could continue to struggle but even then, I became weaker as I saw the man take a turn and start to leave, my last able-bodied breaths were escaping me as I choked and gagged, and so was my own life. I continued to struggle for a second more, choking on my own blood, but I was too weak, my motion was restricted but for the last few seconds of my life, I felt nothing.
No sorrow, no pain, no sadness. Just. . . Emptiness, seeing the dark sky above me as my last able breath escaped me and I just remained there, blood trickling down my neck and my mouth. Death, to a wendigo.
Ending Notes: And last but not least, though, I want to thank the people that have put me in this place and the people that have supported me and helped me and worked with me to help make my content better as well as my own personality and figure out who I am and who I am supposed to be as far as my content goes.
I am your rat, and I am glad to be.
I want to obviously thank my Patrons individually and a few other people that have helped a lot; Patrons will be first:
- Ardent Prayer
- Act Man
- Rachel Carr
- Brendan Lowry
- ULTRAMANZX
- Some Perv
- Chris Robert
- Thesk Darram
- Striker
- Evan Killeen
- Robert
- Kaleb Caruzo
- Rythaze
- Joshua Ezzell
- Euclid
- Elliot
- Kyle
- Icey76
- HiddenXperia
- Ian (Halo Canon)
- Taras (LateNightGaming)
- Adv Jones
- Vincent
- Valentina
- Cerberus
- Jordan
- Nathanael
- Anirudh
- Rae
- William
- Justin Guerrero
- Terra Ubiquitous
Among many others that I won't mention because if I keep going this is not going to end. But know that I keep you in mind to all I didn't mention.
Thank you. And better keep your eyes up for new articles this month!
- A Rat
P.S. Better shoot some love Ryth's way, he's a fantastic artist, same with Kyle who has helped me with a lot of my graphics and headers, and of course, you know who to commission for 3D art *wink wonk*
