#I'm stalled out on the website stuff because I can't do the shit until this fucker gets out

[kedreeva]

Spicer???

Yeah Randy Spicer from Spicer Ornamental Birds. He's been a complete DICK in every interaction I've ever had, and EVERY time I talk to someone who brings him up, they test the waters to see what I think, and then are relieved to find out it is not just them he was a major twat to.

Around... at least 5 years ago, maybe closer to 7 (I'm not sure of the exact date, but it was not super recent), he took over as president of the Michigan Bird and Game Breeder's Association (there was some kind of dust up with the last president and finances, but obviously I don't know the full story there, just what the current president let on), and his wife took on one of the other roles (I think she's Secretary now, I don't know that she started there), which included taking on the facebook page for the association.

And this Association, which has been around as an Association since like the 80s officially, started to almost immediately fail at... everything.

You have to understand, I've gone to these swaps since I was 18, that's 20 years of going to these swaps at this point, and when I started going, they were HUGE. Tons of people showed up, the aisles were PACKED with people, there was a huge variety of birds and game animals. They had raffles every swap, advertising, the people running it would walk around and chat with vendors and people showing up and make sure everyone knew where the next swap was, etc. It was, as far as I could tell, thriving.

And then this guy takes over, and all communication stops. The facebook page started only making ONE post per year, with the dates for the shows, and sometimes not even in time for the first swap. The website stopped updating in 2021, and hadn't been updating in a timely fashion for a couple years before that. The raffles stopped. The Association merch that used to be at a table at swaps disappeared. The shows got smaller and smaller, the aisles between vendor rows grew sparse. Until last year, I went to one of the swaps that's traditionally been pretty big.... and there were SEVEN vendors (including me), and maybe 10-15 people showed up. This is an event that normally has 30+ vendors and hundreds of people.

That was the point where I tried to contact the association, but the "email" listed for them was just Spicer's email, so I was totally ignored. So at the next swap, when they came to collect the table fee, I asked if anyone had gotten my email, and the guy fetched the Association president- but it was NOT Spicer. It was a little old lady named Kim, and she was perfectly happy to accept help in redoing their website, and start talking about how to improve the association.

And during our talks, it became clear that Spicer had been purposely attempting to drive the association into the ground. He'd actually outright said to someone that he wanted to destroy the association and take the money they had for various costs and give it to 4H instead. He's still the VP because they hadn't had the ability to vote him out, especially since they had no one to take his place (because, dying association).

So, I gave her contact info for people I new that would be willing to step in as needed, and I redid the website, and I've got a LAUNDRY list of things the association needs to be doing to stay active and help its community. At the end of April, at the next swap, they'll be having their first annual meeting (which they were supposed to have in January...), which will hopefully include a vote to kick Spicer (and his wife) out, and vote in new board members.

And I am (if all goes well) going to be there to see it go down. Where's the quote about living long enough to see your enemies fall? It really is the sweetest.

[innocence-wont-save-you]

[An overseer is ‘sitting’ next to the scavenger as they look at Innocence’s sleeping form.]

Hey bud, isn’t it kinda weird our friend is uh… still sleeping? Like, we should be moving out by now. I mean I know we’ve been waiting for like, six minutes, but it feels like a month! And yeah, I know you don’t understand me.

(OOC: Heyyyy so uh, sorry if it’s rude but I didn’t see a place to submit an ask on the website so I’m asking here. Is this blog ever going to be updated in the near future? If not, do you plan to still continue it or is like, irl stuff putting weight in your shoulders? I wanna join the disc and ask questions but stupid anxiety is making me not do it. If you’re still working on it or left the project, don’t feel pressured to continue, it would be selfish of me to ask that of you.

tl;dr: I kinda just want an update on the current situation Innocence Won’t Save You is in.)

OOC: YES HI HELLO I'M STILL ALIVE THANK YOU FOR ASKING ACTUALLY

Short answer: Yes there's. Shit going on in my life. Mostly school work; this has been one of my busiest quarters so far and I'm constantly swamped with work and haven't had the free time to really sit with IWSY and work out what I want/need to do.

Longer answer: Yes there is currently no way to submit on the website I am so sorry. When I said this would move off Tumblr I meant it and I was finding ways to do that, but I kept hitting roadblocks because I started learning web dev Solely for IWSY. Ultimately my progress on the javascript tutorial stalled (due to aforementioned busyness) and other people let me know that Neocities isn't... the best place to host comments locally? So that threw a wrench into the plans.

I've admittedly not written much for IWSY in the time since I announced we'd be migrating off Tumblr. In hindsight I kind of wish I'd waited a little, but I think this quarter would have done this to me regardless of if I'd wanted to migrate or not. However, I still want to work on IWSY. This project is NOT abandoned. I'm just very busy :'D in a good way though! After a bit of a rough spell, my life right now is, without exaggeration, the best it's ever been, and aside from just plain being busy, I'm also trying to enjoy being alive for once. Unfortunately it means things have been and will continue to be very, very slow here for the foreseeable future.

But I do have a small update. I gave up on trying to code comments locally, and instead found an open source commenting plugin called Isso that I'm hoping to install on the website. Actually doing so will require time I don't currently have since I. Uh. Don't know python. But if all goes well, I will have that set up at some point, and then I can get started on scene 14. I can't guarantee anything on that while this quarter is still going on unfortunately, but I will promise you all that once my summer break starts (which is in June since my school runs on a quarter system), I'll put more time and effort into this again.

If you'd like to help get the comments set up I would deeply appreciate it, but again I don't think I can see myself writing any long form creative fiction until I have the time to dedicate my mind to it, especially given what IWSY is. I'm really sorry about that, but I'm glad to hear that you're still interested in this story! So sorry about the radio silence, I really should have updated a few times since the last post I made, but thank you again for asking and reminding me to at least say something.

So TLDR, no the story isn't dead, I'm just hella busy and trying to appreciate life.