Help Keep Khiara Weird (and Making Weird Art)

TL:DR - My various ways of making money for the last several years have all simultaneously taken a severe hit in the last few months, along with my health. I am very tired, very broke, and would very much like to keep making the strange stuff I've poured my heart into for the last while - which is why I'm asking for help.

Hello! First off, thanks for taking some time to peruse this page - it means a lot. For those that don't know me directly, allow me to offer a bit of background on my current situation. I've been a full time member of the workforce since I was 17, mostly working retail and customer service jobs, until I started working at an escape room in 2016. While working at that escape room, I rediscovered my passion for puzzles of all sorts. Shortly thereafter, I started my own company crafting puzzle games - The Enigma Emporium. In April of 2019, following the successful publication of our first three games, I left the escape room to design full time. Since then we've published six more games, with a seventh presently in progress. When the pandemic hit in early 2020 it heavily impacted my industry, as manufacturing, freight, and individual level shipping costs all skyrocketed, and standardized timelines became a thing of the past. In the last two years, we (myself and my business partner) have done our best to adapt and overcome, but the stress has been severe and at points incredibly difficult to handle, on top of the stress inherent to a pandemic.

(Photo shows myself looking very excited sitting on the floor next to a very large stack of boxes - four thousand decks of Carte Rouge, one of the games I've designed!)

In November of 2021, my health took a sudden nosedive. It started with a bad case of strep throat (the first time I've had it - cannot recommend.) At that urgent care visit, I was prescribed antibiotics. I finished that first course, and still felt abysmal, at which point I paid another visit to urgent care and was prescribed a second course. Shortly after starting the second course of antibiotics, I began experiencing debilitating migraines, which after consulting with a 24 hour nurse line, sent me back to urgent care for the third time in two weeks. At that third urgent care visit, they (thought) they saw a concerning cranial mass on the CT scan they performed, so I was then sent to the emergency room. At the ER they ran an MRI, and declared that they couldn't see anything awry, and sent me back on my way with an info packet about migraines. The terrible headache persisted for another couple of weeks beyond that point - I am now convinced that's how I react to that variety of antibiotic (historically, I don't handle antibiotics well at all.) Between the strep throat, antibiotics, and migraines, I was unable to begin working a job that I'd just been hired to for a few weeks past my anticipated start date.

(Photo shows an envelope labelled Trial by Cipher overlaid by an assortment of postcards - this is another of the games I've designed!)

Thankfully, there was a bit of a lull in my health being so poor, and I was able to work a few shifts in mid-December. As we were approaching the holidays, myself and my partner went to get our Covid booster shots together - the day we received the shots, he began to feel notably ill. Initially, we thought it was just a particularly strong immune response, but quickly realized something was more awry. We quarantined across Christmas, and the day afterwards I also started feeling less than stellar. The day after that, I tested positive for Covid. Following my receiving a positive test, we quarantined at my partners for the next 10 days, meaning I missed out on yet more shifts. Once we'd completed our quarantine, I was ready to be back at work, but unfortunately several of my coworkers had also tested positive in that timeframe, and my employer made the (all around commendable) decision to close for a week as the rest of the staff waited on their test results - meaning I missed out on yet another couple shifts.

Once things at work settled out, I started working again, picking up extra shifts as they were available. Then, this last Thursday, I woke up unable to hear out of my left ear. In a stroke of luck, I was able to get a doctor's appointment the same day, and found out that I evidently have an ear infection (also a first for me - can't recommend these either.) I'm currently treating it with antibiotic/steroid drops, but it's making it somewhat difficult to work at the pace I prefer, as I'm having some associated nausea and vertigo, on top of my hearing still being virtually non-existent in that ear.

(Photo shows a deck of Carte Rouge sitting open on a wooden table, revealing foiled lettering on the interior flap and showing the back of the first card)

Which brings us to today. The last few months have been a struggle. I'm exhausted, disheartened, and feel like my body is falling apart on me. On top of the sincere stress associated with a sudden array of medical issues arising, my financial situation is presently rather poor, largely as a result of the last few months.

Working as an independent game designer certainly hasn't paid particularly well - but for much of the last three years I've made it work, making adjustments to my spending and lifestyle to accommodate as best I can. With our webstore and wholesale orders, plus the crowdfunding campaigns, we've generally been able to pay ourselves in lump sum portions every couple of months. We were hopeful that our most recent game - Funny Pages - would allow us to pay ourselves somewhat following the Kickstarter campaign, as we had with our previous games. Unfortunately, that is not looking to be the case. We ran that campaign in summer 2021, and with the unpredictable increases to manufacturing and freight costs, along with significant delays, it's looking like my main endeavor of the last year and a half will make us no money until we can start selling the additional copies via our webstore. On top of it looking likely that there will be no immediate compensation for my work on Funny Pages, being ill over the last several months has severely impacted my ability to fulfill orders for our webstore - meaning that it's been closed for much of that time, cutting off another revenue stream and potential to pay ourselves.

(Photo shows Funny Pages - the game that has occupied much of my time for the last couple years, that will be arriving imminently so we can start sending it out to our fans!)

Additionally, being so sick has significantly set back another project I began early this fall - establishing another business to offer my services as a designer. It's an idea that I spent many months mulling over, and that I started putting into motion shortly before I contracted strep back in November. In the last couple weeks I've thankfully found some time to start working on setting stuff up again, but my initial hope/plan had been to be fully setup and accepting new commissions no later than the end of 2021 - we're now well more than a month past that point, and there's still a lot to do before I'll have things ready to go.

(Photo shows a (likely not quite finalized) logo for my new design business - Khiartistry)

Right now, my checking account has dwindled to a point of some concern, and despite having several more shifts at work throughout the rest of the month, I'm questioning how I'll cover various expenses, ranging from rent and utilities to groceries and gas. Given how much of my income is reliant on projects currently in progress, this financial difficulty is something I foresee getting much easier in the next few months, as I set myself up to take commissions, Funny Pages is finished up, and I can work in an actually consistent fashion at my part time employment. That said, my current situation remains tumultuous, and so I'm seeking help to tide me over until the storm settles out. I've already spent through my cushion of savings and racked up my credit card in the last few months, and am quickly running out of options - aside from setting aside what I've been working on and towards for years in order to re-enter the wage workforce full time. Given how poorly my body has been handling existence in general, that is not an enticing or potentially even feasible option. I've done some digging into various assistance programs at city, county, state, and federal levels, and have so far found that for various reasons assorted, I'm ineligible for pretty much all of them.

I am not particularly enthused about asking for help in this fashion, as I feel quite certain my need is not as dire as many others and I have a (potentially problematic) insistence on being independent and handling myself and my own affairs - however, if there was ever a time to ask for some help, two years into a pandemic when my body has decided it's done certainly seems like it. Any funds contributed here will go directly toward general living expenses such as rent, utilities, and groceries - anything beyond what is needed more immediately will be set aside to start rebuilding my savings, or used to pay down my credit card so I (hopefully) won't end up in this position again anytime soon. If you've made it this far, thank you for reading (and perhaps donating) - if donation would cause financial stress, please don't feel any obligation to contribute, but sharing this GoFundMe page with friends and family would be a huge help! I'd also like to note that there are many folks in need of help right now - if there are higher priority needs in your community and you have the ability to give, please, focus your efforts there first. Feel free to reach out to me here if there are any questions - I'd be happy to discuss. I hope that you are having the best day you can, and thanks again for taking the time to read this.

(Photo shows Khiara doing finger-guns at the viewer, and is captioned 'Thanks for Supporting WEIRD ART')