Money. Talking about it.

There is a wildly huge difference between people having a volatile financial situation where fine can become not fine rapidly with sudden bottom of the barrel destitution (typical of artists) and folks taking advantage of you.

HUGE. HUUUUGE.

There are folks on here who will drop Paypal or GFM links a few times a year. Or, folks like me who sell stuff and say "this would be a good time to buy things" when the situation takes a turn for the worse.

I get paid the bulk of my annual income twice a year, standardly. That's it. And, as I'm an artist and most of my major income comes from publishers on advances or on-deliveries, I depend on /the houses'/ schedules so it can be uhhh. Hand wavey when that money arrives.

A month or two delay is pretty hard to budget around or for, and when you have a mortgage or a rent payment, it's KINDA DEVASTATING.

Lots and lots of artists are depending on lots and lots of institutions that do pay outs on a wiggly schedule.

And most of us live with the pressure that /when/ a check shows up, we'll be fine awhile, but the first thing we're doing is paying off backlog and trying to sock some cash aside for the next hand wavey payout.

People asking for money does not mean they're bad with money. It doesn't mean they don't deserve to buy a nice thing here and there. And it certainly doesn't mean you have the right to pass judgement if you aren't in their financial shoes.

A lot of us artists have supported OTHER artists in the downdip late payment trenches because we know what it's like.

I get a lot of shop RTs when things are bad from authors for a reason. They know that pain.

People who need help sometimes but not always aren't scammers or bad people most of the time.

So if you find yourself thinking this way, maybe listen to something my father told me growing up:

Once you give that money, let it go. Loan or donation, it's gone and you're out.

But thinking it gives you some kind of moral cudgel because "IN THEIR SITUATION I'D" is an asshole move.

If you can't give your money freely and without qualifiers, you should probably keep it and let the rest of us who'd rather be "scammed" than let folks go hungry step up.

And believing poor people or people with volatile income situations never deserve to treat themselves to "save for a rainy day!" is poverty porn and frankly, fuck you for that. We all need reasons to get out of bed in the morning.