Guys I know we all love AO3 for hosting our fanfiction, and the OTW for defending our right to create it. But please remember that they can only do so as long as the fanfiction is shared for free.
I know a lot of writers (and artists) will do fic commissions or submissions to fanzines (free and paid). But you cannot mention the fic was paid for on Ao3. This includes for charity drives where the writers don't keep anything! Ao3 staff has stated this explicitly in the past.
And please, please, do not run a charity drive or zine where the recipient of the proceeds is Ao3/OTW. You are publicly exposing them to legal attack for funding them by selling fanworks! You can't even mention that you do that on Ao3, do not then make a paper trail right to them!
And keep any mention of your paid work off your Ao3. No links to commissions or patreons or ko-fis or notes that the work was commissioned, or even links to author stores of unrelated books. All of these are prohibited by Ao3 itself in order to protect fan creators and their works.
Fanworks for profit is a sticky legal place, don't make the OTW's job of defending us harder or even impossible by paying them with fanwork proceeds.
I am *begging* anyone who thinks that Biden/the Democrats "haven't done anything" in the last two years to actually look up all the policies and relief they've pushed through.
The media is doing next to nothing in publicizing positive accomplishments. It's a constant cycle of what they Haven't Done (some of which they have tried but been blocked by Republican votes, like the two attempts earlier this year to codify Roe). Not to mention the actual bad choices and takes that get tons of press and groaning.
I have two positive accomplishment posts going around, one on student debt relief and the other on the internet price cap and discount program. On both I keep getting tags that these are the ONLY good things people have seen.
Please break your news bubble. You've been misled by the focus on the negative and the spin.
They're not flawless but when NONE of the positive things are being talked about, only the negative or lack of progress, you gotta wonder who's benefitting from that spin. Especially when certain parties are actively blocking progress.
Isn't it just super nifty how most people would lose their job if it turns out they lied about their work history and education... but doing that is practically a prerequisite for government office and there's no takebacksies once you vote 'em in. (Unless you spend millions on a recall with one hundred thousand of your closest friends.)
Possibly more baffling is lying about your background and credentials at all when you apparently don't need to demonstrate any knowledge whatsoever of math, science, finance, and global anything to get hired.
(The people making our laws should at least need to test out of some high school level courses and do some continuing ed. Yeesh. But that's my other perennial rant.)
Anyway, this has been another episode of Enber Rambling.
He grifted elders, a veteran, and a dying service dog, y'all. How even. (Besides lying about everything ever)
The US federal government considers health insurance "affordable" if it costs less than 9.12% of your household income. (Otherwise you can get a discounted Marketplace plan from healthcare.gov, go look before December 15th.)
My new employer would charge me about $3k/yr for my coverage alone, so I'd probably need to go with them. But family coverage is over $15k/yr so everyone else can get discounted marketplace.
To be "affordable," you'd need a household income of $170,000 to cover $15k/yr family premiums.
That is. Significantly more than the two of us could possibly make next year in new careers. By multiple factors. It's obscenely higher than what we made this year @.@
I'm most of the way through S2, stuff happened then other stuff happened and then there was that neat part and I was right about that thing I spotted and the episode is paused but EXTRA stuff is about to happen
I've seen several people I follow on Twitter mention participating in Dracula Daily. But there's really not a lot of it being posted on Twitter.
There are some shitposts akin to what we're doing here. And at least a couple of the artists are cross-posting their work. (At least I hope it's their accounts and not theft.)
But none of the original posts are getting much traction. We're talking 10-25 range. The threads doing numbers? Are the ones about the Tumblr engagement and our content.
I find that simultaneously sad (no extra content via Twitter :() and validating because we clearly have the better site here.
I know all of us have been having A Time the last two years. But it's been ramping up really bad for my family lately, and we've reached a rather precarious tipping point. With our mental and physical health, as well as our finances. We're dodging foreclosure and losing utilities right now, while trying to get answers on several health problems and processing the grief of losing Grandma on top of all the Other Fun Stress.
I'd appreciate some good vibes and signal boosts, both would go a long way toward cheering me up (and replacing some of this stress with positivity!)
I'm a queer neurodivergent artist (and writer) supporting a mixed-race family of four (plus pupper). My job has been on reduced hours for over a year and we can't make ends meet any more when I'm getting between 10-20 hours a week. They keep promising it'll get better so I keep hanging in there, but... It's been two years of promises now. Hub is back in school to get away from retail and help us be independent again, but that's going to take time and we're struggling now. I can't hunt up another job because I'm home with our toddler.
I take art commissions over on @caffeinatedmagpie (I do digital paintings and 3D renders of OCs, novel and series characters), and I have a ko-fi if anyone wants to drop a little tip. Art is slow at the moment as my health is iffy (appointment in May), but I will field commission inquiries on @caffeinatedmagpie.
Become a supporter of EnberLight today! ❤️ Ko-fi lets you support the creators you love with no fees on donations.
Further details about our situation:
Financially we're in quite a mess now. My income was cut in half last year (pandemic wrecked my industry) and has been even lower lately, so we can't even limp along any more. We have over $8k in medical debt from the hit-and-run that totaled my car at the end of 2020, plus accounts that went into collections while I couldn't work due to the recovery from my injuries. We missed the last mortgage payment, and our water was cut off today. (March 22.) I'm working on arrangements for those, but it's been difficult to scrape anything together this month. What we had went to funeral expenses and replacing a blown tire.
Health wise things are iffy too. Hub is diabetic and our older son has a new food allergy, so both are on restricted diets that make the grocery bill tricky. Kbit (12) has also been in severe stomach pain all year, we're seeing a gastroenterologist next week to find out why (avoiding the allergen hasn't helped). I'm seeing a doctor in May to find out why I've developed severe menorrhagia (which nearly sent me to the ER last week due to anemia and drop in blood pressure). That's on top of my chronic pain, chronic fatigue, anxiety, and depression. We were treating those last year but the meds caused me to get severe full body tremors for a few months until we cut them out. (I am now rather adrift with all this stress. Fun. Thus the need for good vibes!)
The littlest bit (almost 3) is pretty healthy but the State is nagging me about his speech delays, so we're getting him some options for that. He has upcoming appointments with audiology and Autism screening; I don't expect either to pan out. He's just on his own schedule, like Kbit was.
The dog is doing great and is possibly the laziest border collie mix in existence. She's been comfort cuddling our older son, and watching over me. She has a full time job of laying down with whoever needs her, basically. Good pupper.
Anyway thanks for listening, I almost never spill details like this but I've been holding all the stressors in for two damned years now and I just got overwhelmed finally. Woo.
So like. Can I get a nice big pile of good vibes to boost us up? Because I am not enjoying myself @.@
Signal boosts for my art account and ko-fi also go a long way to help. Thank you ❤
One of my favorite things is trying out foods from other cultures. I grew up very white and rather poor, so the meal rotation was like, three basic dishes and rather bland because my parents literally only had salt, pepper, and onion powder in the cabinet. The most adventurous seasonings we had were Lawry's seasoning salt and Worchestershire sauce. The most multicultural we got was eating Polish sausages and pizzelles. Or the wursts at the German festival when I was older. (We come from Irish and Irish/Austrian immigrant families, and a city that in the 80s was predominantly Irish, Polish, and Italian immigrants.)
My mom's high school friends (rich preppies all) introduced me to sushi. My college friends introduced me to the glorious budgetary cuisine of Chinese buffets. I ventured cautiously into the little Korean market to try pocky and ice cream taiyaki. I married a Black man and learned how to cook more dishes with Actual Spices that at present have taken over the kitchen. Together we've tried as many Japanese dishes as we can get ahold of and cook several ourselves thanks to the Japanese grocer. Our Columbian neighbors introduced me to tamales - which scared me a little at first because I had to wait to see how they addressed the corn husk wrappers. Were they edible? Should I just bite it? Glad I waited, you unwrap it first! So delicious. They also turned us on to a little chili-lime-salt seasoning to shake onto watermelon and I swear you will never eat it plain again after that. It is also good on pineapple.
This post brought to you by the delightful arepa I snagged from the grocery store, which is my lunch. It is basically an elevated grilled cheese made with sweet and crispy corn cakes that takes just minutes in the skillet then om nom nom.
It is an utter shame I missed out on these foods for the first half of my life.
I am definitely thankful that I live in an area now that has cuisine from damn near everywhere. Like Thai food. (Hot damn that tea though.) Indian food is next on our list but I have White Person Taste Buds so we'll be cautious there lol.
