Hi, I'm ratpunk! My mission is to impart joy unto the world and encourage people to express themselves authentically. I would like to continue pursuing this goal full-time, but I don't have enough money to survive right now. I'm being pulled in multiple directions and it is overwhelming me; I am SO CLOSE to making this path into a sustainable one. I need your help to give me a chance at making it work ...
Donating to this campaign will allow me to focus all of my attention to the following (in no particular order):
- Community-building through my platforms, through events, streaming, and other content
- My Furality performance in a couple of months
- My dance platform/game, lucid.dance (ideally both for VRChat and online, 100% free)
- My browser extension for helping people with ADHD manage their tabs and bookmarks (a no-AI app I am making free to use, because I'm building it for myself too)
You can find more information about these projects below the Context.
----
Context:
I am recently removed from the tech industry as a developer and people manager, helping projects and teams discover their strengths, and create a healthier and happier experience in the workplace. The shift to an AI-first world destroyed a lot of my coworker's lives through mass layoffs, and though I was spared initially, my time came shortly after.
The grief and stress of this caused me a ton of health issues, which led to me searching and discovering a healthier and happier life for myself through dancing over the past couple of years. And although my savings has completely vaporized, I KNOW that this is the right direction for me right now, with the momentum fierce within me.
I want to keep going, but I need help to get to a point of stability. It is very challenging for me to ask for help, but ... if you enjoy any aspect of what I do, any little bit is an act of generosity I can't return to you directly, but I will deliver through the work that I seek to be doing full time through my dancing, my art, and my projects.
Thank you so much for your time and no matter what happens, I hope I can continue doing this for everyone. It has been the most fulfilling pursuit of mine so far. I don't want to stop now.
----
Additional project info:
* Community-building through my platforms, through events, streaming, and other content
- ideally, running bi-weekly dance sessions and enabling people to run their own dance events, too;
- running *more* dance classes with the Soaring Fitness group;
- special events through my stream;
- dance and vocal covers, collaborations
* My Furality performance in a couple of months:
- a full-scale concert production with original music
- a 1 hour choreographed story-telling performance
- coinciding with an album release (hopefully)
* My dance platform/game, lucid.dance (both for VRChat and online, 100% free)
- inspired by Just Dance and Dance Central, targeting VRChat but plans for a Desktop release if everything goes well
- aimed at providing an arcade-like experience for existing dances in an unofficial way
- includes dance learning support, connecting dancers and choreographers with web platform and in-game VRChat world
- already-built massive dance database with links to over 25000 individual choreographies and tutorials
* My browser extension for ADHD-accessible browsing:
- kind of random but something I started building for myself to help me manage a billion tabs while working on these projects
- acts as a browsing buddy that eliminates the need for bookmarking or any amount of tab management
- helps you (and me) categorize what we're looking at WITHOUT relying on AI to do so
- free to use / donationware

