It's New Year's Eve!

I had to do it, I had to write about 2018. I've also made this post public, so it's available to the people in the XC2 community that haven't pledged. I owe you all a HUGE debt of gratitude, so yeah. Here it is.

(This is going to be cheesy.)

So, last year, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 came out. It was my first ever voice acting job for a video game, and it was so fun. I remember telling my agent how great the process was. How silly and strange and interesting it all was. Then, when the game came out, there was a brilliant, funny, passionate fanbase that came with it. You found me on Twitter, we started exchanging memes, and it turned into a really cute internet connection.

My (at the time) new friend, Alejandro, and my boyfriend Sam had this awesome idea about streaming the game on Twitch. I was skeptical at first, I didn't even really know what Twitch was. I didn't think people would care enough to tune in, and I didn't feel like I was cut out for streaming anyway. I'm not the kind of person to be overly-animated for the sake of it, and I was also conflicted about accepting money from an on-average, relatively young audience, just for streaming a game. (As I knew there was this kind of unavoidable donation culture on Twitch.)

Anyway, after they explained it to me, I changed my mind. I made a Twitter poll asking whether anyone would be interested in watching me stream the game, and I got more responses than I had followers!

So, starting on my 23rd birthday, May 2nd 2018, we launched the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 stream. 50% of any donation I got went straight to the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, and the other 50% went into a creative fund. I figured I'd use the opportunity to raise some money for charity and maybe get the ball rolling on some of my personal projects. 

It was so much more than I ever expected.

We were able to send £3,000 to the CF Trust, and I was able to dedicate some serious energy into making art. I made a short film, I bought some equipment, and I was able to release my first single, Afterlife, on the 31st October. 

It's impossible to convey how grateful I am to the stream, the community, and the game. It's so important to have the freedom to create without financial burden, and I'm not kidding when I say that I need art to stay sane. Although, with the end of the game, I didn't really see a future for me on Twitch. I really enjoyed the game, but in the end, I only really loved spending time with the community. Everything else I could've taken or left.

Enter, Patreon. The 2019 project! I'm so excited about this. To those of you who have pledged, I've gushed at you so much you're probably sick of it! You know how much I love you. People who care about art are so important. People who love to not only see it grow and develop, but to be directly responsible for it's existence... it's fucking incredible, and so are you. As you know, there's a lot coming up in the very near future!

Being an actor, it's easy to wait around for the phone to ring. To trick yourself into thinking a stranger in a Soho office cares about your life as much as you do. It's very easy to make excuses not to work hard.

This year, I learned how to take up an active role in my own life. I was able to shift my focus, and re-discover my soul with music. I was able to gain a much healthier, more fulfilling perspective through introspection and self-exploration. Man, all that good shit. I recommend it.

I'm self taught with everything, and with self-tutelage, you get a lot of growing pains. Which, at first, I really hated. You want to be perfect on the first try! Again, unsurprisingly, that's not how it works. 

With this short film I did, and also a music video I did a year ago, there are a lot of imperfections. They're still good, they still represent themselves well, they're just not perfect. However, I've accepted now that it's cool! It's chill. I'll just apply what I learned to the next one, and move on. I guess another major thing I learned this year was with failure, you gain wisdom. So, fearing failure is completely irrational, as it doesn't really exist. With failure, you still succeed.

And people came to the stream, and said that it made them happy. That single fact in itself is enough to make this year one of the absolute best. 

I love you all so, so much. I truly mean it. You're all interesting, complicated, beautiful people, and I'm so grateful to have met you. 

Xenoblade fans, Patrons, random people who are here for some reason! (Nice to meet you!) Happy New Year. Thank you for everything. 

Keep doing you, life is beautiful. Here's to 2019! 

THE YEAR OF THE ART MOB!

- Skye