i'm gonna be uploading full resolution versions of my art over the next few weeks (that wasn't commission work) to this kofi account under a creative commons license with a pay-what-you-want price tag set to $0 min. Partly, this is to functionally actually back up and distribute my art in the wake of cohost's imminent demise, and it's long overdue anyway. But yeah. There's an option to send $5 or more to me monthly too to help me get out of this hole for good, and i'd like to add to it as a shoutout and integration feature in the future to thank the people helping me out, but it will be some time before i can promise a commitment like streaming again. i need to finish owed work first.
the following is a copy of the post i've made on kofi about how it's not going so great over here. (You can tell it's not going well by the fact that it's a kofi link.)
[redbubble]
[kofi]
Hey, it's rawks.
Here's something im not good at verbalizing:
A long-term goal, and honesty about the situation im in.
i need help.
i have been struggling to survive for a very long time now, i and i need to change how i'm handling work and life or it's going to kill me sooner than later.
Through the pandemic until current time, i've been working a side job that increasingly has been becoming unsustainable for my mental and physical health, but it's been paying the bills. i've gone unmedicated for the last five years for diagnosed depression, hypermobility, chronic migraines, Raynaud's disease, scoliosis, and anxiety, and i have very good reason to suspect that i've been living with undiagnosed adhd this entire time.
Being visibly queer in public has also proven to be more daunting than i was anticipating, and i'd like to remove myself from working in there for my own safety before moving forward with further visibly transitioning. i do not live in a kind area toward visibly queer folks, nor work a safe job.
Catching Covid three times and further damaging my bad joints hasn't made this rock any easier to roll uphill, and more recent pet health needs have absolutely drained my savings to dust.
i have a backlog of art i owe people that i want to finish dammit! The job that unfortunately isn't covering my medical needs is paying the bills, but i cannot functionally complete owed art while maintaining enough hours to survive on this income. This isn't right, i need to fix this.
But five years of stubbornly trying to work through it hasn't been enough, and it's getting worse. i can't keep this up.
i desperately need healthcare and assistance.
If you like my art, please throw it at your walls and friends and projects. The art that i share here will be released under a creative commons license, with full resolution downloads, under a pay-what-you-want-including-free link. All i ask is that you ain't a nazi.
if you want my art printed on something and shipped, i have all of my redbubble uploads listed at a 50% markup rate, so those purchases do genuinely help me!
God, i would love to pull all of my work from there. It it a necessary evil i'm choosing to work with until i can survive without it.
If you're feeling more generous than i can would ever be able to express my gratitude sufficiently for, i'll be setting up a subscription donation thing, long-term goals for these will include shout-outs and art and things when i have enough spoons to handle more than my current workload.
It feels worth noting that i can functionally survive on as little as $500 a month if i have to, even reaching that kind of goal would save me so much faster than i have been managing to do alone.
i am currently in a stable living situation, and not in immediate danger. but this may be the last chance i get to reach as many people as i can now for a long time.
Thank you for reading my sob little story, i'm just kinda at my tether here. Life has been unkind of late.
these last few years have been way harder on me than i can recover from without retiring from working 24/7 fastfood/convenience/gas station night shifts, and it's become apparent that i can't do this for much longer. i'm neglecting completing owed art and i want to fix this mess, but i have tried stubbornly to just work through it for five years now, and it's almost killed me a few times.
im so tired.
if i hit the point where im getting even $250 a month for my art i can finally start cutting the helljob back and doing what i need to do, owed art, instead of spending my free time in a fugue state of recovering from job while fighting unmedicated mental illnesses.
i lost about 75% of the stock i had built for anthrocon this year to mice overrunning the storage area about a month before the convention, and miraculously still broke even, but that paycheck didn't hit this year like it needed to to keep me floating, the irs still owes me around 4k in back taxes that i haven't been able to inquire about because of the aforementioned unmedicated mental illness.
the quoted 5K would cover stock losses sufficiently enough to rebuild what i lost, it was mostly hand-printed teeshirts and paper prints, but having to move my entire storage and working area a month before the convention while sorting through and cleaning the remains of my stock really fuckin' hurt, i wont lie.
other life problems i haven't brought up here, and partly why i've been so quiet here, include paying for my boy's chemotherapy. i was floating ok for a while with all of that, yeah. but i just, it's too much.
since cohost is going away, i'm losing honestly the widest community my art has ever been recieved by. i've never felt so welcome anywhere else, and im going to miss that like you wouldn't believe. If you want to see me be able to get out of this hole and continue making art, spread my kofi around please.