Hello! Our name is Kit, but we are better known online by the name Kittybot. We are a mentally ill, neurodivergent, nonbinary artist who has spent 20 years building a successful commission business. We believe very strongly in lifting each other up and are active in mutual and direct aid and are always trying to find ways to help friends and strangers. We live our life in service to others, both in our spare time and in our career bringing customers', many of whom have become friends over time, visions to life. However, even at this point we are not able to make enough money to support ourselves and our disabled wife, Chubi, including our apartment, Chubi's car, our insurance, our medical bills and mental health care, our considerable debt, our groceries, and our pets. In the past this has been okay because Chubi, despite her disabilities, has led a promising career as a Site Reliability Engineer, first working in tech support and working her way up over the course of over a decade.

However, six months ago Chubi was downsized. After promising many times that their team would not lose any more members, her company first fired her manager and then removed her. She is a neurodivergent trans woman with severe back problems, mental health challenges, and currently, a massive hernia that will likely need abdominal reconstruction and leave her in recovery for an unknown period of time. Still, she has been diligently searching for a job this entire time, and despite quite a few promising leads, nothing has panned out. The tech industry is extremely difficult right now, even in the busy tech hub that the Seattle/Tacoma area is, where we live. She is also deeply depressed and in constant pain and struggling to function at this point.

We *were* doing okay on unemployment and our own income, and have some money from our parents that they withdrew from our inheritance. However, with the various bills and such we've had to pay, even counting our own income, that money is unlikely to cover more than two months' rent, not including bills or food of any kind. This morning we got the email - Chubi's unemployment benefits end in two weeks. We are staring down the barrel of losing everything - our apartment, our car, our access to health care, our lifesaving prescription medication, our credit ratings, possibly our ability to live within driving distance of our girlfriend here in the Seattle/Tacoma area, and maybe even our two beloved cats, Ozzy and Pigeon, who are best friends and have been our emotional support through all this with cuddles and purrs. We only rescued Ozzy off the street just over a year ago, and he has such bad separation anxiety - we do not want to put him through having to go back to a shelter, especially if it meant being separated from Pigeon.

We are currently looking into disability benefits for Chubi, but that is not a guarantee - many if not most applicants are rejected the first time - and the American government moves at worse than the speed of bureaucracy these days. Our options are running out.

In light of this, we are hoping to raise enough money to last another 6 months of Chubi not having an income. This comes out to a minimum of $3500 a month to cover our rent and a lot of our bills, with our (Kit's) own income supplementing for the rest. So the total we are currently looking for is $25,000 so that we will have some extra padding for emergencies or to cover fees. Every penny counts. Even if you can only spare $5, it puts another $5 towards our rent or $5 of food in Ozzy's fat little face. Even more than donating, it is vastly helpful to us for people to share, signal boost, and repost our story and our fundraiser.

Many people in our communities are struggling right now, and we know our story is a drop in the ocean. We have always believed in the power of mutual aid and direct aid, and whenever we can we strive to be the one *giving* aid, but unfortunately now we need to receive it, even though it pains us to have to ask for help from the communities we only want to give back to. We appreciate you just reading this far.

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If you have leads on a potential job in the Site Reliability Engineer or High Tier Tech Support fields available in the Seattle/Tacoma area or as remote work, please do not hesitate to contact us at farore[dot]nightclaw[at]g m a i l[dot]com. Likewise, if you know a good disability lawyer working in Washington state, please drop us a line.

If our wife gets a job before we would need to use all of the money we have raised here, we will be donating the remaining amount to other fundraisers and will show receipts before closing this one.

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As a final note, being that we are a career artist, we would be delighted to give some rewards for larger donations:

$100: DIGITAL sketch of an animal, human, fantasy, science fiction, or furry character

$500: DIGITAL inked and flat colored art of an animal, human, fantasy, science fiction, or furry character, may include a second character OR a low detail hand-drawn background. OR, TRADITIONAL ink, marker, and gel pen art of an animal, human, fantasy, science fiction, or furry character, may include a second character OR a low detail hand-drawn background. TRADITIONAL art will be mailed to you free of charge.

$1000+: Holy crap! Let's talk! What do you want?

If you are not familiar with our artwork, you can see some examples here. We will not draw trademarked characters (such as Spiderman or Sonic the Hedgehog), though we are willing to draw *cosplay*, or characters who are the same *species* as trademarked characters (such as My Little Ponies) provided they are distinct from the trademarked and copyrighted content. For these rewards we would prefer to keep them safe for work so that we can share them as updates. Please note that, obviously, anonymous donations cannot receive rewards unless you have some way to prove that it's you.

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Thank you so much for caring enough just to read our little spiel. The communities we love, live, and work in mean the world to us. Yall are rock stars, every one of you.