Financial Emergency Art Comms, OPEN! Request: Please reblog? My plea for help.
If I'm being totally honest and up-front, I actually ran out of food for my kitties for about two days two weeks ago while we scraped together cash in the account; we just haven't had the sales we usually get this winter and early spring, and it's eaten our budget alive. Like everyone else... I'm struggling, and for the first time in a long while, I am genuinely scared. I found out I'm late on a car payment right now (infuriating because I am SO CLOSE to owning it in full, less than $400!! D:), I have more bills coming up, and... We might be losing our house on top of everything, because Family Drama BS.
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I would deeply appreciate from the bottom of my squishy organic heart, if you'd share this post along if you can't afford to commission me <3 Reblogs are literally my lifeline right now.
(it literally makes me feel ill to ask for reblogs because I feel like i'm begging but you know what, fuck my pride, I will beg for work so I can buy my babies food if that's what it takes. Let me draw u cool stuff? :D Help me find other people who would like me to draw them cool stuff?)
We managed, I stretched out my kitties' pellet food and they got spoiled with some cooked eggs and meat and other goodies, but it really really wasn't what they *should* eat and that scared the shit out of me, honestly. I only just managed to afford to buy food for the cats and then, a week later, I needed to buy food for my birds too (thank fuck i only need to buy their bag of fancy ass organic pellets that won't explode their organs via malnutrition, like once every three months) It's a symptom of a larger problem, one I hope to resolve this year, but right *now* everything is a mess, and I could really use some more art commissions to supplement our income.
The Family Drama Tea is below the cut, if you wish to know about what's going on in my life outside of fandom nerdiness. (Spoiler: Don't Do Business With Family is a really great line of advice. No. Seriously. It is.) It's.... A lot. honestly, it's a lot. I am a tired bean.
Sooo a -very- long story short, it looks like me and my fam and all my furry, scaled, and feathered Symbiotes, are gonna be moving this year. Hopefully, on our terms. Frighteningly possibly, under the conditions of being evicted by my Aunt and Uncle who were supposed to be our partners, and instead pulled the most dickish gaslighting moves to be our Landlords instead. We're likely losing our house for very long and convoluted reasons, and while I'm optimistic things in the end will turn out all right... It's pretty damn scary right now.
The gist of it is; my mom and i don't fully own our house. It was my Great Grandparent's, and when they passed away, it was put into a trust that my mother was a part of. Split between her siblings and her mother, they all got a share of the GG's assets as per Great Grandpa's will.
And then there was the house, and the land around it. And naturally, everyone in the trust wanted their slice of profit / inheritance from the sale of said land as the will said they were entitled to.
As it happened, at that time, my (step)Dad had only just recently passed away, and the household we were living in was literally falling apart at the seams (gotta love that cheap ass nail-gun cut-corners-on-every-cost-possible Boomer Era construction quality amirite?) and sinking into the ground, and the expenses there had gotten ridiculously high.
Moving here was actually a financial smart choices for us; we moved in at almost zero debt when all was said and done, and while we no longer had any kind of nest egg, that was okay because we were making money with our pewter business and my mom travels to sales events. So we were getting by, and things were 'fine.'
Well, at first, it wasn't an option for us. My mom considered it, looked at what we could get selling our current house, and we decided that it wasn't financially possible. There was no way we could purchase the house, from the trust, at fair market value.
Well, long story short, next thing I know and my Mom and her sister brainstormed and voila! They came up with a plan for us to buy the house out from the trust; we would move in, pay for the mortgage and all that fine jazz as the new "owners" of this home, because it was supposed to be our home.
My Aunt and Uncle were basically just co-signing on to help finance the purchase, and my Aunt and Uncle invested capital (most primarily, both my mothers and my aunt's inheritance from the GG's assets) into buying the house from the family. So, my mother put her inheritance right back into the house, so that money all went paid out to the other members of the truste.
Now, the household and property was owned by three people; my mother, my aunt, and my uncle. Or rather... It was supposed to be. ;_;
Supposedly, we got a household that served all our needs flawlessly, kept family land in the family, and everything was hunky-dory amazing. We have been paying the bills like clockwork, but I guess we didn't make our millions fast enough for my Uncle, because...
Well. To put it bluntly, he lied to us. What started as a kind help of family helping family, has over the course of two years turned into a gaslighting mess of "oh I'm so sorry we didn't say this I thought I did! This is how things are now" with no option to actually make that decision together, and not to mention the actual literal terror I've had of being worried my fur and feathered babies were going to be let loose outside (we have coyotes, hawks, owls, eagles, big cats, you name it, my kitties would be Dinner) or killed (spraypainting in the house with birds, after the words 'sensitive respiratory systems' have left the man's lips the night prior, anyone? :D And don't get me started on the vaping indoors with them, or the constant daily reminders of how much They Don't Like My Symbiotes), eveyr time they visited our household.
Fortunately, they live literally across the states from us, so I don't have to deal with them in person often.
Unfortunately, they really fucked us over in this situation and i'm not yet sure how we'll resolve it, but our focus goal at the moment is revolving around "make lots of money, trim down our belongings so we can be Mobile At The Drop Of A Hat, and Look For Somewhere Else To Live"
Because they fucking lied to us.
We just found out that my mother, who is supposed to be a 1/3rds owner of this property, which was supposed to be put into the company of an LLC she and her sister had discussed, agreed to, and my mom's sister was supposed to set up and we do in fact get *mail* addressed to said business name.... Well, it just so happens, my mom's sister never transfered the title. ("Oh I'm so sorry I thought I told you about that? Well it just didn't make sense and I didn't do it" is such a great and wonderful and mature reason to not follow through on an agreed to plan of action. If it DIDN"T MAKE SENSE then WHY DID YOU AGREE TO IT IN THE FIRST PLACE????) And with some other bullshittery in my gloriously convoluted blood family (I love, love, LOVE and TREASURE my found family and those few good beans i'm more closely genetically related to my gods you people are amazing please keep being amazing we need more folks like you and less people like my Aunt and Uncle from their Sitcom Parody they didn't realize was meant to be a fictional script not a how-to guide to life)
Anyhow let's just say, I'm livid and worried that my Aunt's crooked husband, and frankly i guess i have to start viewing my Aunt as her own person and not just blaming her husband for Corrupting Her because She's Her Own Damn Person And Is Making These Choices, basically manipulated my aunt and mom and the whole situation, to set things up nice and tidy so he can fucking attempt to steal the entire inheritance from my mom at the cost of our livelihood and our home. Because they want to build their dream home, and have extended themselves too far with other ventures in the time since we entered into this whole arrangement.
All our finances have been invested into this place. It's a crapshoot. There was a lovely little issue moooooonths and months and months ago now, where my aunt and uncle pressured my mom into signing a "default lease" contract because they "needed it for the bank" for some convoluted fakey reason i honestly do not remember, i just remember warning my mom that it sounded sketchy as fuck (because they specifically stressed it wasn't a real lease and it wasn't going to be an issue and blah blah idc if you tell me it's fictional in the eyes of the court Written Contracts Are Law and that shit is REAL thank you very much) and if she signed the lease as it was written because it wasn't a fancy thing at all it was really just a default form-- well, if she signed it, they could have absolutely had the technical legal power to turn around the next day and gleefully tell me to get rid of all my Symbiotes, because they sent my mom a lease that restricted tenants from having cats / birds / etc wow how coincidentally specific.
So she made a different version that fixed that little issue. And my mom signed THAT version. And my aunt signed a FUCKING DIFFERENT VERSION AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT'S GONNA DO BUT IT'S A MESS I UNDERSTAND ENOUGH LEGAL JARGON AND ABOUT BUSINESS TO KNOW *THAT* AAAAH.
Sorry i just. Had to scream there for a second. I'm chill. Totally. Mostly.
So, back on track; the long long long story made honestly shorter I swear, is that the only people who have their names on our property and home we were supposed to be slowly paying off to own like a psudo renters agreement, are actually our factual Landlords according to what's currently documented and set up by them, and they actually own everything. And my Uncle, has long decided to, and has been, treating us like tenants, not like family, and very much an "I own this place you're just lucky enough to eat out of my hand" (he really got a complex, yo. It's actually pathetically hilarious and abysmally comedic, if it weren't so frustrating I'm actually stuck being involved in business with him that's fucking up our livelihoods)
I.... I can't even begin to state how much this all has affected my mental and emotional health and wellbeing. Finding out that a woman I admired from the single-digits and looked up to my whole danged life, actually views me as a lying and manipulative attention-whore who is ungrateful and selfish, (they think I am lying about my health disabilities, and my Uncle deadass tried to convince my mom and her husband that I was clinically insane and should get a Psyche Evaluation and blah blah blah) was admittedly a pretty big nasty blow to my squishy little heart.
So was finding out that a very happy, wonderful, cherished memory I thought I shared with said formerly adored Aunt, was actually all this time for these last several years, viewed as a horrible experience to her and she lied through her teeth about how much she enjoyed my company, literally encouraging me to walk all over her boundaries and telling me it was okay. Because if you tell me, when I ask you, if you are having fun and wouldn't you rather do something else or etc because I am reading ur body language and I don't think you are having fun so I am checking in because I want u to have fun, and you say "no no I really want you to experience this thing i've done a million times before please seriously go enjoy yourself doing the stupid thing over and over while i watch and relax," I'm... going to believe you? At your word?? Because that's the data you gave me to act on??????
And if you tell me, "honestly, no, i'd rather actually do something else because i am not having fun rn"... then I will act on that information, too, and we can change course go have fun together???
I wasn't even allowed the opportunity to. She let me cluelessly walk all over her happiness and I had no fucking clue except I -did- because I fucking -asked- her because I read her fucking -body language- and honestly this is a great reminder to me to trust myself, trust my instincts, and trust my fucking eyeballs because body language is hard to fake but words can easily lie.
So yeah i've been a big weepy trashfire mess a lot these last two years ^^''' Uuuuuh dunno where I've gotten inspiratio nfor writing my fanfic books ya'll love so much hahahahahaaaaa no clue no sir not a single idea here.... (I'm a fraud I so often ust take IRL events and slap new context on them for that glorious escapism mmmm delicious)
I'm devastated, to put it bluntly. But that's also old news (I found out the way my aunt and uncle really thought about me about, gosh, two years? was it now? not long after we moved in, and i've been worried about our household security and situation for a while, but now we have actual confirmation that Shit's Not Right and it's really the dreaded mess I was worried things might become. Damn do it suck when your paranoia ain't just paranoia :((( i want a refund, pls? plssss?)
The new news, is the confirmation that they are as sketchy, deplorable, gaslighting, manipulative, and dishonest as I was terrified they would be and their sweet honeyed words assured me they were not.
(don't even get me started on me actually trying to Talk To My Uncle to connect with him. You cannot connect on a deep and real level, with someone who cannot even connect with themselves honestly. It was a good, if harsh, learning lesson for me. Ow. Ow ow ow. My heart hurty.)
I'm hopeful that we can still resolve things as peacefully as possible (which is to say, my uncle very much is making Loud Noises about how he'd love to sell the entire property and with his Lack Of Smarts And Impatience he'd do it even if it's possibly at a loss which may well mean they then try to fight my mom to avoid giving her any return of the assets she invested into, y'know, our fucking HOUSE) by way of... just... doing what we're already doing. Making money, paying the bills, trying to save up and get ahead like we're always trying to do, sigh.
I take small, small satisfcation that my swamp almost ate this man. One should not drive heavy equipment into a fucking SWAMP. That skidsteer he rented was a very, very sad muddy and broken-axel'ed mess when the wrecker hauled it out of the mud :') (thankfully, no one was hurt physically [there is no recovering that ego bubble burst :'D], and the damage to the ground... Well. Honestly, he did more harm to the land actually using the skidsteer than they did dragging it out of the poor marsh. Sigh.) I sincerely hoped it scared him into thinking with a little more sense. I am not optimistic on that front admittedly, but I am ever hopeful. It's the second one he's sunk, in the same idiot choice of driving heavy machinery over wetland, if that tells you anything about how this man opperates.
And they thought I was the insane one? Isn't the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?
:SnarkyThinkingEmojiHerePls:
So... yeah, that's the *house* issue.
On top of everything, we took in two new kittens my parents rescued last October... I don't regret this. Really, I don't, because if they didn't rescue those little furballs I guarantee you they would be owl or eagle dinner because that is what happened to the other dozens of kittens and cats abandoned at the park these two little guys came from, and the shelters there were all kill shelters ;-; so... they came home with us. I've got a new brother and sister barely taller than my ankles, and i love them to death.
They're also two more mouths to feed, and because they're kittens, they also needed vaccines (thank fuck, I was able to get these! I found an affordable place to buy the vaccines and we administered them ourselves. That literally dropped the price by hundreds of dollars compared to the vets around me, yikes, plus bonus, no stressful vet visit. It cost me about $100 bucks with shipping, to get my babies their meds), and they're going to need a neuter and spay surgery here very soon. We have the luck of having a brother and sister pair.
The Mortgage payment (that as we just learned isn't even our fucking mortgage like it should be, it's purely under my aunt/uncle's names) is over $2,000 to be here, due to the way the taxes got adjusted after Great Grandparent's estate was closed. Even if my mom succeeds in somehow swinging an arrangement where we sell all the land around us off (30 acres.... imma cry to see it go, because it's some of the last natural land that's got a thriving ecosystem and diversity in my county, and not enough people care about that remotely, so thank fuck for the nature preserves ;-;), we're still going to be moving afterwards. That would, however, be probably the most ideal outcome of all this, because it'd allow us the chance to get our feet under ourselves (with a drastically lowered mortgage that may even be completely paid off with the land sale) as we look for a new place.
So... there's a chance I might get to stay here, but right now, it's Way Too Real that my aunt/uncle might decide to pull some kind of eviction notice BS. I genuinely don't know what to expect from these people anymore, except knowing that they do not have my or my family's best interests at heart, and I can trust my Uncle to break anything he tries to 'fix.' (I'm not joking. When I tell someone "hey I can't spraypaint the outlets like you wanted because the only paint i have is cheap watery bs that's only good for making weird fade effects it's literally that bad," I am not expecting the INSTANT my back is turned, for the forewarned person to be using that Shitty Ass Watery Paint to try and spraypaint my fucking house. God dammit. Not to mention the broken garage door, the broken fence gate, the broken toilet he installed wrong, or all the other wonderful 'helpful fixes' he tried to do. Or shit he broke while doing stuff. When we have a skid steer at our disposal, I should not have to go out and hand-rake ground back level because he Tore It The Fuck Up and made an even bigger mess.... guh, sorry, i'll stop ranting about that now)
As it stands, however, I am already looking for a new place. Any recommendations for me to check out in Virgina, or Southern Illinois? ;D
I just. Fuck. I am trying so hard ot be optimistic here ya'll, but if i'm honest, I could use some help, and I am finally biting my pride to fuckin' do that thing where I open my mouth and be honest about my shitty situation and ask for it. But I don't want to just Get Stuff For Nothing, so please-- let me work for it <3
I can't work a nine to five job on my feet all day. I can't even do a desk job all day (my current job IS basically a desk job lmao). But I can do it following my weird ass body's schedule between weird dizzy-pain symptoms, and I can do art!
So, if you'd like to help me pay bills which incidentially also includes my inernet bill which is what allows me ot publish fanfiction and art, I have opened up my art commissions! I have also created some fun membership tiers on my Kofi. The highest tiers offer gifts of hand-cast pewter jewelry I've made, and original artwork and letters made by me.
I won't ever stop doing art... But bills have to come first, so please pardon if I am slower on my fanfiction updates for my books in these next few dizzying months. I'm doing everything I can to make art, make money, and keep a roof over our heads.
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