In July I lost my shitty but stable day job that I'd held for over twelve years. The CEO's attempts to chase new tech and bigger clients finally caught up to him and everyone got laid off as a consequence.
I was fortunate enough to qualify for unemployment, but I couldn't afford to pay @joannacomic's artist anymore and even after my mandatory four job apps per week and half a dozen interviews the only job offer I have to show for it is an even shittier seasonal tax job that I need to take a class for and doesn't even start until January.
And then as if that wasn't bad enough, Cohost went bankrupt. The best social media site I've seen in ages, like Tumblr before they got bought out. It was rapidly becoming my new home on the net.
Knowing that the job market is a bear I started trying to find supplementary income. My book royalties are lucky to bring in $10 a month so I started offering story commissions. A few people took me up on the offer when my prices were cheaper than dirt, but then I timed my writing speed and raised my price to be over minimum wage and crickets
I threw things at the wall and nothing stuck. I opened a Twitch channel and my audience scurried away every time I acknowledged their arrival. My fursuit that I've been waiting for over a year finally arrived and I did an unboxing video but my attempts to do something on camera with it on have fallen flat. I put up my old knitting projects for sale on my Ko-Fi and nobody bit.
DVS was fun, even as a first-year staffer, but some of the panels had me questioning my genderfluid identity. I'm actually thinking of looking into HRT but I know that would make it even harder to find a new job and it's expensive.
A lifelong agnostic, I might have found religion. I set up a Shinto shrine in my bedroom a while back but I actually started leaving daily offerings at it after I got laid off.
On the other hand, my new financial situation has put a fire under my ass to get some things off the ground. I talked to Fenris about publishing Joanna. I've got concrete plans to Kickstart a @parahumanspace RPG based on Cepheus, but that's a gamble especially with how many furry TTRPGs there already are.
Anyways, this'll probably be my last post here, check out my myriad other sites listed on Carrd https://zarpaulus.carrd.co/
And if you feel like tossing me a few bucks, buy me a coffee https://ko-fi.com/zarpaulek