God bless the inventor of Ko-fi, my heart aches when I see my friends or the creators getting me through these last few months having trouble but even a $2 Patreon is $24 a year and those add up fast. Three bucks one time with no obligation on either side, just a “I saw the link on the same day I got a great coupon, so it evens out”? A nice way to feel like I'm doing something to not just be the proverbial free rider mooching off this unofficial system.
Look big windfalls like my tax refund I am morally obligated to put towards refilling my rainy day fund or saving up for a laptop before this one croaks, little windfalls I refuse to feel guilty about passing on. With the ability to do so anonymously I can even defeat my anxiety about people wondering why I gave to one person and not another. (really I have to keep it random because if I start trying to weigh need against need I end up getting all weird about whether I have the right to spend anything that isn't strictly necessary and I am not going back there)
The only thing is it uses paypal meaning I get about 3 receipts including one that lists a recipient name that isn't the one on the Ko-fi. Now after the first time I learned the wording so I could toss it into my records folder without looking at it, and its not like I can remember names when I want to, but I worry that people might not realize that even if Ko-fi is discrete, Paypal is handing their legal name out. There are so many reasons why someone might not want to have their legal name out there from dead names to stage names to simple privacy.
I assume it falls under the usual unspoken rule of "I see your paypal name, I am looking away"; but I worry about everything, especially with it being used for the first time by a lot of people, so maybe the moral obligation goes the other way? I should be the one to give them a heads up? Or is that putting them in a bad spot by making them acknowledge that I already saw it?
I suppose I could try to put that concern in a tumblr post and hope it gets seen by people considering/using ko-fi. concerns:
There is nothing to say about the state of the world that hasn't been said better by actual experts a million times already. If anyone is following me on social media for the news, they have bigger problems than my inability to get my head together enough to live blog the pandemic. So I'll try to set aside feeling like I am doing something wrong for working through other things while real stuff is going on. I know its my brain casting around for stuff it can actually do something about, even if my various issues mean "do something" often means looping on stupid shit and chewing on issues from years ago.
I think its a sign of progress that one of the things I started to use to beat myself up about is both a current issue and something I can actually work on. With everyone moving to streaming and voice chat more, I've had to face something that has never been a priority for me. I HATE the sound of my voice. No I don't mean recordings, not even professional voice actors like their voice in recordings that much. I mean as the words are coming out of my mouth I often have to work at not spending brain space on how much I hate my voice. This ends up taking up nearly as much brain space but at least leaves me "vaguely annoyed at being reminded what a fuck up I am" and not arguing with myself over self hatred. So not only do I not own a mic I'm pretty sure I broke my laptop's built in mic on purpose.
There are actual resources out there, some for free in ways that don't take from anyone else, for various kinds of voice training especially as relates to gender. Hell I think I could even live with sounding about twelve when I try to be chipper as long as it wasn't a twelve year old girl.
So not sure how much I'm going to actually do about that little revelation but I let myself talk a bit lower than usual, I don't think Mom even noticed, and I actually kinda liked it as opposed to just not hating it. So while I know it might just be because any new thing feels good for a while, I think it might be worth it. Just another way my little discord makes me want to be better: doing something about hating my voice never seemed worth it, but not only want to talk with them, I want to do it with out this distracting me.
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