laying here trying to figure out if it's even worth trying to get my laptop set up to stream or if i should just take this as a sign from the universe that it's time to give up. my numbers have been tanking for months. I'm at like 1/4 the viewers I used to have and don't know how to fix that.

A human did do this. They used an automation system with admin privileges and trusted it would somehow magically account for all contingencies. The person who used the automation is the person responsible. There is no other entity.

the good news is we are at $478.90 the awful news is my computer still will not start even after hours of troubleshooting and trying new parts I have no idea what to say or do or ask

I’d add words of wisdom from my stepmother—“A hobby is something you spend money on. If you make money on it, it’s a job and you’ll eventually need a new hobby.”

it won’t be hard to discern to people in the future that the first black president led to a relentless and hyper-radical effort by conservative elites to destroy not only the voting rights act but reconstruction itself.

Parents: we hate the tech Teachers: we hate the tech Local admin: we hate the tech Tech companies: here’s lots of tech! Media: whoa so much cool tech Politicians: thanks for the donation let’s get tech in schools!

A colleague told me that I should be gentler with people like this, that I can’t win them over by calling them selfish. Their selfishness means I couldn’t win them no matter what. I’m done wasting my time tiptoeing around the fact that they’re enabling destruction.

It's tough seeing every single freelance artist I know having the same "uhh I haven't had paying work or sales in weeks" posts, it's gotten extremely tough out there for us. If you have the means, please consider treating yourself to a commission or print or book from an artist you like, it helps!

My polite and effective way of saying this is this screenshot and a heavy handed but gentle stare at…quite a few of you.

Hey, look. It's a decent scan of this legendary image!

Bounced clear to $448.90 out of $780 overnight we might actually make it!! please let me know what kinds of things you would like to see as a stream reward after the move!! ko-fi.com/lyarrah

this isn't even all of them yet

We're up to $345.90 nearly halfway there I'm trying to come up with rewards to offer the community if we hit the goal by the end of my 12 hour stream Friday I'm scheduled to pick up the moving truck next Sunday morning!

Obviously this is hilarious, but also, I live here and this is 1000% not what’s happening. But even if it WAS, that route carries *thousands* of people per day. Why is one person in a car by themself more important than a bus full of people, especially in an incredibly dense part of the city???

Now at $295.90! Really appreciating the support! I'm also finding stuff to sell on craigslist and ebay to help bridge the gap but I've only got a week until the move!

This does seem like very poor judgment for a company whose entire customer base is people who write and draw by hand.

"Three young Barn Owls looking out of the quatrefoil of a church in North Norfolk."

Sorry if I've been swinging wildly between these two concepts lately. These times are really trying.

I'm also counting any sales I get on my games towards my donation goal, so if you're looking for a goofy evening with friends, check out Doomscrying or one of my other tabletop games? (they're also available for free if you're as broke as me!)

We are at $255.90 of the $780 goal I set, thank you so much for the generous progress! that's 1/3 the way there! I'm frustrated I'm having to ask for help but I'm really grateful to the response I've gotten. ko-fi.com/lyarrah

convinced the real huge irony of life itself is that the universe if chock full of intelligent species that will never ever get to interact

The attack on education in the US is not new, but the slow fuse that arguably started with Reagan is now setting off detonations across K-12 and higher education that are going to be incredibly difficult to walk back if we don’t treat this like the urgent crisis it is.

Not everyone has the time, energy, skill, or resources to read their kid all the time. This guy does, and he’s letting AI do it anyway. That is so fucking foul I kind of can’t wrap my mind around it. Spend time with your children instead of letting the robot do it oh my god!!!

Me and my kid visited the Museum of Home. I saw something that felt like a true attack. It was a scene from a home in 2005. Me and another mom with teens stood there as our kids asked, "you had this?" We were grateful.

They're doing the detransition thing but with autism now.

I've often said: I'd rather write an entire book, any day, than a 1000 word pitch for a book. The books that sound sexy & marketable as a pitch are just the kind I don't want to write. I'm not writing a book because I know what it's about, or how it ends. I'm writing it precisely to find that out.

I'll say it again, one of the worst things this rampant push to cram "generative AI" into everything has done is make people suspect bright kids of cheating when they're just nerdy or bookish or neurodivergent, sanding down their unique edges to fit into people's lowered, homogenized expectations.

This is ridiculous. No one needs a truck like that unless you’re in an arena crushing cars on purpose.

Packing itself is going way more smoothly than I ever imagined and that's making me conclude that I must be doing it wrong or forgetting something

I'm also counting any sales I get on my games towards my donation goal, so if you're looking for a goofy evening with friends, check out Doomscrying or one of my other tabletop games? (they're also available for free if you're as broke as me!)

We are at $255.90 of the $780 goal I set, thank you so much for the generous progress! that's 1/3 the way there! I'm frustrated I'm having to ask for help but I'm really grateful to the response I've gotten. ko-fi.com/lyarrah

It's easy to be negative online It's easy to be mean or snarky or rude. It's easy to be self-defeating. It's easy to give up. But fuck that We have to uplift each other. We all have to be positive influences on each other. Everyone is struggling in their own way and we all have to help how we can

fleeting

By the way, I am already job hunting for the move to Portland. If you know of any data entry, transcription, or similar computer jobs, I am hoping for something I can access via public transit from the west burbs. I type 70wpm and know my way around all the office suites!

I've gone ahead and set up a $780 goal on my streamelements and counted the $33 I've gotten so far towards it This represents the cost of the moving truck itself, since what I had saved up will cover the people to load the truck and hopefully the gas for transit.

I don’t “network,” I make friends. Other artists are not my competition, they’re my beloved peers and sources of inspiration. We all have the same goal; to share our art. I’m not gonna corporatize my human relationships with them. I am in my sandbox playing and I hope they join me.

Paintings from my recent trip, the Tapeats/Kanab Creek wilderness route, one of George Steck's routes. Super rugged but 100% worth it! 1/3

When Einstein developed general relativity the closest thing to a practical application that could even be imagined at the time was a slightly more precise description of where to look for the planet Mercury in the sky, and yet now we’d all be literally lost without it. Anyway: fund basic research.

It’s been a real banner year for “that guy who gives off those vibes? Yes it turns out it was completely correct”

yet again .... remember why he and his minions are doing this .... 👇

Your worth as an artist is not tied to lack of sales. Your lack of sales is, however, tied to the fact absolutely none of us have any money. You're NOT a shit artist. We are ALL broke, my dude.

(Do not let shitty men convince you that being like them is how you be a man)

Do not let the shitty men convince you that "all men are like this" - it's a cover so they can pretend they're just following their programming instead of making the choice to be assholes. It's a ploy to keep everyone scared and to convince you that speaking up is pointless.

I have had We Don’t Talk About Bruno stuck in my head for a few days thanks to that ASL video and it occurred to me that the way the family treats Mirabel is pretty analogous to how people deal with disabled people. Let me explain. (Obviously Bruno is pretty overt, but let’s leave him for a bit.)

Montana would like to remind me it's still winter until it says otherwise (I don't know when I'll next see winter again so I'll take it)

My new TTRPG Not AUniverse hasn't even been out a week and it's already over 120 downloads! 🥳 Thank you so much to everyone for your support on my new hobbies. I've been having a ton of fun, and I hope you will too if you give them a try! lyarrah.itch.io/not-auniverse

In the mean time we also passed 150 downloads on my first game, Doomscrying! lyarrah.itch.io/doomscrying It's a silly little dice roller about pondering your crystal ball instead of doing your witch chores, and can even be played solitaire. Both games are free on itch!

My third game is live! This one is a board game with a character sheet about mallgoths trying to buy Cool Enough outfits before the concert without getting caught by security. It's available now for free! lyarrah.itch.io/goth-quest-2...