Patreon updates (nsfw discussion)

Sincere thank-you to every single one of you reading this, first of all! I know I always say this, but you really do mean a lot to me. Thanks for always putting your eyeballs on my artwork. 💞

This update post is mostly about one thing which I've talked about on Twitter and here a couple times before.  The summary is that I am not leaving Patreon right now, but I am making a back-up and exploring other options in case things go downhill on this platform.

If you were pledged to my Patreon in August last year, you might remember when I was confronted by someone in staff requesting I take down certain art pieces after they were falsely identified as "underage." (None of the characters in question were under 18, and none of the pieces that had been falsely flagged were even the most cutesy and stylized of my work, so it was extra absurd.)
As I had not actually broken any rules, everything was OK after that, but in the end, I never got a concrete response from staff about how they decide if artwork "looks underage" or not.

The problem comes from the fact that in the past few months, it seems that more and more artists (specifically artists who do NSFW, anime style stuff like I do) have been contacted by staff about this. While some of these artists DO make sketchy stuff and I can understand why they'd be warned, the part that really concerns me is the part where staff says: "...regardless of the intended or narrative context".

I have no intention of drawing an underage character in NSFW art (and that's obvious, I would hope?) and don't normally do fringe or "extreme" fetish material for my clients, so normally I wouldn't be in danger of breaking some kind of obscenity rule. The problem is that any kind of illustration that isn't realistic is heavily stylized, and often times you need contextual clues or artist intent to get a complete picture of someone's work. Without it, it's entirely possible that someone could not only mistake a character's age, but their gender, or whether or not a scene is consensual... etc. (For example, although I usually draw happy people having sex, even when you're happy you're not constantly smiling during sex. Context and intent is important, because even an expression of pleasure could look like pain, and apparent non-con is another thing that Patreon warns or bans people over.)

In addition to this, there's even more issues of false flags and bizarre moderation, like words like "yaoi" and "anal" causing a pop-up alerting artists that they might be breaking rules.

Despite all of this, right now I am not leaving Patreon. I still like using it despite its issues, and I don't want to make everyone move to a different platform just to follow me unless it becomes necessary. However, I have decided to set up a SubscribeStar Adult account as a mirror and backup for the things I post and do here on Patreon. If you're interested in that and would like to potentially move your pledge there, here is a link!

SubscribeStar isn't without its own issues, and right now I only have an option for a $5 tier pledge as I haven't fully worked out what the fee situation will be like on lower dollar amount pledges, or how to deliver all the rewards in the same way. Ideally though, I'd like to make both pages work basically the same way.

The reason for this is basically because, again, while I don't anticipate having any further issues with moderation, that all depends on how much more Patreon decides to change their rules and if they continue to view stylized & queer art as problematic.

Additionally, if you have recommendations about other Patreon alternatives you like, and/or things you'd like to see me do on another platform, please let me know! Thanks again for reading this, and for those who aren't interested in moving to another platform right now, don't worry: everything here on Patreon will be staying the same. ^^