the future of devils & fools

hello friends. if you’re here in the united states, you know that yesterday was another impossible day, particularly for black americans. for more of my thoughts on this issue, check out today’s instagram post. and to my black friends and followers, i love you, and i hope you can find some ways to rest and take care of yourselves today.

i wrote the information below yesterday, and it unfortunately still needs to be shared. as i head out to get my second vaccination shot, as i consider the future of my work, i want to be as transparent with you as possible about some challenges that have been happening behind the scenes.

in the process of attempting to move this newsletter off of a platform that has refused to address the transphobic hate speech created by some of their users, the payments service that works with all of these various platforms and services (stripe) has decided that after nearly a year of running this newsletter, they will no longer support my business at all.

this is not a new issue, either for me or in general - stripe and several other payment companies have a strict policy of not supporting “psychics or fortune tellers” as businesses, and see anyone who performs these “high-risk” services as being in violation of their terms of service. if you’ve been following me for any length of time you know that i very specifically don’t identify as either of these things, that my work is all about making tarot accessible through an intuitive and creative lens, and that my writing is educational and personal rather than predictive. and while in the past stripe has been willing to look more closely at my work and recognize that my writing is not in violation of their terms, that in fact i designed this newsletter specifically to not violate these terms, for some reason they’ve now changed their mind. and after a lot of back and forth, they are refusing to budge.

in short, what this means is that i will no longer be able to process payments for this newsletter. due to stripe refusing to work with me anymore, i can’t continue to use substack, and switching to any other platforms (ghost, buttondown, etc) is also now not an option. and while it’s possible that i’ll be able to find another way to process payments, using paypal or the like and publishing directly through my website, the truth is that i’m discouraged. my intention was to support a marginalized community, to stand by my friends and colleagues, and the result instead is that i’m losing a stream of income that i had been counting on.

due to all of this, devils & fools will be slowing down while i try to assess my next steps. i’m not sure when my next post will be, or where it will be hosted, but it will go out to all subscribers. if you would prefer not to receive any more messages from me, please feel free to unsubscribe, as i will be carrying this email list forward.

no one should be charged by substack or by stripe for the month of may. no action on your part is necessary. if you’re someone that paid for a year in advance and you have concerns, please feel free to reach out via email (3am.tarot@gmail.com) and we can work together to find a solution. i did not anticipate this happening, and i don’t want anyone to feel taken advantage of.

please know that i am deeply sorry for all of this back and forth. i love this work, i love this community, and i appreciate you very much. take care of yourselves, be safe, and thank you for being here.

with love, meg