#so my time is technically worth a lot more than I'm charging for it lmao | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cookinguptales · 2 years

Note

hey, can you talk about how fic commissions work? I'm not interested in getting into the market (I'm just not very good) but I'm super curious about the process

Well, honestly? I don't do it very often and I generally do it for charity. That said, I guess these days I'm saving up to renovate my bathroom to make it more accessible (take showers without risk of death 2023, tbh) so I might be open to putting the proceeds towards that. lmao

My usual process is to set a price per word (I try not to let it slip beneath minimum wage, tbh, so usually $10-$15 per 1000 words, perhaps more if it's a tricky subject) then if someone wants a fic of a certain length, they can contact me and we can work out the details.

I tend to get uhhh carried away with fic, so I don't charge them extra if I go over however much they asked for, but I do charge them! Typically I don't ask for any money until after I'm done. I've never been unable to complete a fic, but like... I guess I do feel more comfortable not taking the money until I have the goods in hand, lmao. I have a whole cornucopia of chronic illnesses, so I fully understand that shit happens.

Like I said, I mostly do this to raise money for charity, so then after I've told them I'm done, I wait until they give me proof of their donation to the charity of my choice, then after they show me that, I'll upload the fic. (Or send it to them privately, if they prefer.)

That said, I'm not like... some professional fic writer. I'd feel kind of uncomfortable with that anyway, though personally I don't feel like it's that different from selling fanart. I'm picky with the commissions that I take, relatively speaking. There are certain kinks I won't write, and I won't write NOTPs or pick up a new canon to write for or something. So I'm not a total pen for hire. More that if anyone in my existing fandoms wants to see something specific from me and they want to put some money towards a good cause, I'm willing to discuss terms.

Truthfully, it still feels very weird to talk about these things openly...? I grew up in the disclaimer generation, haha. I guess I've mellowed out, though, as I've seen literal Disney fanart sold at Artist Alley. (For the younger users here, Disney was always notoriously litigious about their copyrights.) It still feels weird, but as long as negotiations, etc. take place fairly covertly, I don't feel like... morally bad about it. Pretty much every piece of WWDITS merch I own came from Etsy/redbubble, so it'd be kind of hypocritical to treat fanfic differently, imo.

I've also done origific/nonfic commissions and translation (J-E) commissions, and I don't care who knows about that. lmao. That's just a normal fucking job.

#it's kind of hard for me to set prices with fic #because I mean... you need to set it around what people can pay especially if your goal is charity #and words add up fast #but being real with you my normal 9-5 pays me 3-4 times that rate per hour #so my time is technically worth a lot more than I'm charging for it lmao #still fanfic is fun so #(note: I get paid that much per hour but that's freelance work so I get paid that much per job and I get jobs in chunks lmao)#(I'm not just getting paid like... $40/h all day every day #that'd be nice tho...

2 notes · View notes

antisocialxconstruct · 2 years

Note

Hi Charlie! Do you have any recs for some indie cyberpunk games? 👀

My god do I.... A lot of these, especially the proper deep cuts, are fairly short and fall into the IF/VN category, eventually if I have the time to go hunting through more of my to-play list hopefully I can recommend a wider variety.

I'll start with a couple more mainstream titles and then get into the real weird stuff.

Obviously anyone who's been around here a while knows I never miss a chance to profess my love for the Shadowrun games by Harebrained Schemes, although that's pushing the limits of "indie" lmao but for a worthwhile rpg experience that also does a lot to counteract some of my biggest gripes with the cyberpunk genre (particularly the way they handle mental health, addiction, and bodily autonomy), I really can't think of anything better.

Also in the "only indie in the broadest sense" category, for anyone who missed the hype train on Stray I do heartily recommend it. I think it's easy to dismiss that one as sort of a "gimmick" game with how much coverage focused on the pc being a cat and not a lot else, but the game definitely has a lot to say about like... human legacy and the steady march of time. It's hard to say much else about it without spoiling major plot points, it's fairly short but well worth the experience.

Another long-time favorite of mine is RUINER, although I'll freely admit this one is not what I'd call... deep lol. What it is, is absolutely dripping with edgy cyberpunk style and intensely fun to play. I think it does have an underlying commentary on like, the commodification and expendability of human bodies, but it doesn't really take a lot of time to invite you to meditate on that because there are big guns to pick up and sick combos to execute and so, so many people to kill. But maybe that's also part of the commentary 👀

Hacknet is a hacking simulator (go figure) that's very slick and stylish, and if you're not overly familiar with coding and command prompts and such it does a pretty good job of making you feel like you're doing cool hackerman shit without actually asking too much of you on a technical level. I like its sense of humor but I also like the way it occasionally drops a bombshell of a moral quandary on you in the midst of all your petty crimes. I highly recommend getting the Labyrinths dlc to go with it, especially because it'll give you some fun stuff you can take back into the base game.

Hypnospace Outlaw plays like a love letter to the web1 era (and to the power trip of being a community moderator before centralized social media lmao). It has a loose story about what's essentially a shared dream internet, and you're charged with enforcing community guidelines which unfortunately makes you a bit of an outside observer rather than a proper netizen. That provides some context and will carry you through to the conclusion pretty quickly, but ultimately its play/replay value is in uncovering secrets and just delighting in the nostalgia (or the novelty if you're not a 90s kid). The devs are currently working on a sequel(?) that looks like it will actually let you build your own website and interact with other characters in the world, which I'm very excited to see.

Broken Reality is a weird one, and feels a bit like Hypnospace Outlaw but for the early idea of VR. It's also fairly short, but I think it's exactly as long as it should be for the gimmick not to wear out. It starts out as essentially just a surreal walking sim and it's gonna feel like trippy self-referential vaporwave nonsense right up until the tone takes a hard left turn in the third act.

Vapor Trails is still in development, and I admittedly haven't played too much of it mostly because I'm very bad at platformers, but it's got a really nice aesthetic, clever character writing, and what I've seen of the story so far has me intrigued enough to keep throwing myself at it. One to keep an eye on, at the very least.

_transfer is... something very odd. More of an "interactive experience" than a game in the strictest sense, and intended to be played in many short sessions that build on each other bit by bit as you connect with a variety of other intelligences to recover memories about yourself and the world. I don't think I fully understand the story it's telling me and I'm not sure I'm even meant to, but I've played through several sessions and each one leaves me feeling kind of discomfited but fascinated. (I will say $10 may feel a bit steep for what it is, I got it in a bundle.)

Momotype....... okay listen. You're going to go look at this game and think "Charlie has clearly lost its mind, there's no way this is cyberpunk." I need you to just trust me and play it. It's free, it'll only take a few hours to get all the endings. It's Momo.

LOCALHOST is another short one with a fair amount of replay value for the surprisingly varied dialogue trees. You're tasked with wiping some damaged AIs off several hard drives, only to discover that they're all quite chatty, and now you have to decide what to do with them. This one also has a sort of unsettling vibe, and I like the variety of perspectives it has on how AI personalities might manifest.

Subserial Network is by the same developer as LOCALHOST. I've actually only just started this one so haven't gotten very deep into it, but I already find the concept pretty compelling. It's structurally similar to Hypnospace Outlaw, or maybe more accurately to something like Orwell, requiring you to comb through the internet archives of fellow citizens to incriminate them as "subserials": androids who want to forsake their human programming and become more machine. The language used to describe the serializing process has some pretty obvious parallels with both transgender healthcare and treatment for neurodivergence, so I'm really curious to see where it goes with that allegory.

A couple of honorable mentions that aren't really cyberpunk, but have a vibe that just makes me want to include them on this list:

The Magic Circle is essentially a game about game development, with a lot of commentary on artistic integrity and creativity, but the real novelty of it is the amount of stuff it lets you do inside the "game" of the game. It's really hard to explain but it's very open-ended and satisfying.

The Turing Test is, on the surface, a pretty standard "trapped on a space station solving a mystery" puzzle game, and I will say upfront the gameplay probably isn't going to be anything you haven't seen before. The puzzles are pretty good, if you're into puzzle games, but the real reason I'm putting it on the list is because this game was my first introduction to the "Chinese room" thought experiment, and it genuinely had a huge impact on my views and opinions on artificial intelligence.

#ask #merry-harlowe #game recs #rom speaks

69 notes · View notes

bananonbinary · 3 years

Note

I noticed in your tags you mentioned getting an autism diagnosis at an older age. I'm fairly certain I am but I'm not sure if it's worth it to get diagnosed because I hear people talk about how hard and expensive it is to get.

I meant to ask how did you go about it but I sent the ask too soon.

uhh well. it WAS really hard for me. i dont think my experience was super typical tho? at least, i hope not. (this is going to be kinda bleak, but i really don’t think it’s what you have to look forward to or anything. hopefully it could provide more of a roadmap for what not to do)

1) im actually pretty “““low-functioning,”““ which is a stupid term, but is relevant here because phone calls to strangers are basically impossible for me, and its very difficult for me to actually talk to People In Authority without freezing up and losing my voice. so i a) hit a lot of roadblocks that couldve been easily avoided by someone more outspoken, and b) had to rely a lot on my family to help have these conversations anyway. which i recognize isn’t really an option for a lot of people.

2) this all ended fairly recently and im still pretty mad about it, so it probably is a lil more negative than it has to be

the actual process was several years of nothing, followed by finally getting it done in a few months, and it was basically:

me: “hey the office i go to for mental health shit, i need a new psychiatrist, and i’m also pretty sure i have autism, do you have anyone who could help me get diagnosed with that?”

them: “sure here’s this guy” (guy does not know shit about autism, but waffles every time we ask and does not reveal that fact to us until several MONTHS later)

me: “hey guy i’m stuck with as a psychiatrist at the moment, i’m pretty sure i have autism, how do i get diagnosed”

them: “there is no way to diagnose autism in adults, and also autistic people are just spinning in circles and arent aware of the world around them, you aren’t autistic” (blatant lies AND heavy ableism lmao. i finally fired that asshole recently and it was supremely satisfying)

me: “hey my gp, im pretty sure im on the autism spectrum and my mental health professionals are fucking useless, pls help?”

them: “oh man, i love those mental health people :) anyway, aren’t we all on the autism spectrum somewhere? now, lets talk about your weight instead”

me: “hey local autism clinics, im pretty sure i’m autistic, any chance-”

them: “no. we only work with kids, and also need a referral from your gp. and we’re not taking any new patients at this time anyway”

finally, FINALLY, like 3 years later, i found a really great therapist, who’s also a licensed clinical social worker. for the record, i found her out of state and all of our appointments are by video call. highly recommend looking for this sort of set up if you’re having trouble finding mental healthcare professionals that don’t fucking suck in your area, because i promise having good therapy remotely is leagues better than shit therapy in person.

within like 3 months i told her i’m pretty sure i’m autistic, but couldn’t find any way to get diagnosed without my gp on board. she did some research for me, and reached out to a colleague of hers in the area that works with autistic people.

i got an appointment with said colleague (who was great), who basically went through the dsm checklist, said “yep youre autistic” and referred me to another doctor to actually get diagnosed.

that doctor sucked, and literally just went through the same damn checklist the previous doctor went through, but this time charged me $1500 for it, and didnt take our insurance. also said i couldnt be low functioning because i have thought about my gender identity. so, yikes.

but i got the diagnosis! huzzah!

and now my therapist is helping me to set up an appointment to work with an occupational therapist for sensory processing issues, so i can actually FINALLY get some goddamn help (which technically didn’t need the autism diagnosis but none of those shit doctors believed i HAD sensory processing issues until i got it, so). AND family is helping me finally figure out how to apply for disability so i can have some actual agency in my life. we’re also talking to that first doctor who said i was autistic, and she’s got loads to say about how antidepressants and shit dont even work in the expected way in autistic brains, and is hopefully gonna help me find things for non-autism mental health issues that actually, you know, work for me for the first time in my life.

the moral of this story is, it’s REALLY REALLY HARD to try and get a diagnosis if you don’t have a professional on your side. but if you do, it can be really good, and you just need to worry about the money issue. once i found someone who was willing to help me, even though she’s not actually a medical doctor or even in the same state as me, things moved shockingly quickly. and are still moving quickly. i’m really glad i actually did it, because i very desperately need help and i am very, very close to actually receiving it. most of the pain of this story boils down to me floundering because i had no clue what i was actually supposed to do, and no one i asked would give me a hint.

so...is it worth it? depends. even if you actually skip to the end there, i’m pretty sure the random ableism and ungodly price is pretty typical. so, if you think the potential opportunities a diagnosis presents is worth that part (which it super was in my case), then go for it! but if that doesn’t quite balance out for you, remember that there’s tons of good people with good advice in the autistic community who don’t care if you’re professionally diagnosed or not.

#this is so much more bleak than i meant it to be #im uh. still pretty pissed about all that #but i cannot stress enough that i dont think this is how most doctors are #ive got Issues wrt having been raised in a super conservative area and my medical professionals are kinda part of that #ableism tw #like. so fucking much ableism #Anonymous #long post

13 notes · View notes