2022 and changes to Patreon this month

I'm a little late for the year's recap, sorry.
I had a rough year... People probably know this already, but I'll place it here for the full record:

in April my computer exploded because of my brother, and right after I had a vacation that I haven't had in over 3 years. Luckily, nothing was lost, but it took me way too long to get back up to pace.

in May I faced organ failure and was sent to ER to do an emergency surgery, and I spent the full month recovering from that.
I was so weakened that I had to buy BTD6 cause it was the only type of game I could play while recovering, and now this year's Steam review has a hilarious record of when my organ decided to give out.

in June, I got back to the ER for another viral infection, something that's becoming quite common in my life.

My morale sort of hit the lowest end by that point, on top of personal fights with friends, so I just had no creative input to put into my projects.
I obviously wasn't open about this, but I did literally forget why I did videos in the first place. If that was all I was gonna do until one of these problems gave me a premature death.

in September things were starting to run again, albeit slowly, only for me to get the news that my mom was being laid off in October, meaning we had 2 months for her to find a job or we'd have to live somewhere else due to rent, and that was the case. 

I considered announcing a channel hiatus by this point, both to Patreon and to YouTube, cause I could not see a way for me to keep working on videos if I were to go to a dusty old grandparents house that didn't even have half of the requirements to upkeep my computer and make content.

So I spent October and November dealing with that.

in December we moved back into our old hometown, we crossed the country by car for that. As cool as it sounds it was exhaustive and stressful. But nothing was lost or damaged, so it went well.
I had spent that whole time packing, and planning ahead, coordinating with family so they could make the changes necessary for me to be able to still work in the new house, they installed ethernet cables, amped up the internet speed, even the damn electric wiring had to be patched up.

So basically...

This year gave me 0 free time without stress for me to focus on making stuff that I enjoy making, and at this point I'm just hoping next year is better.

I already recollected myself and reminded myself why I do the things that I do, so no need to worry about that.

Right now this is my situation; I'm back at my hometown, the place I never wanted to leave in the first place, I spent specifically 10 long years (14-24) in Hell, just pure hell, a place where everything was against me, the people, the climate, the weather, the customs... I'm never spending a single-extra minute there.
I'm very happy to be back to my hometown.

I'm currently living with grandparents, which is far from great, they're conservative so obviously they don't respect my pronouns or use my correct name, but that's ok, I'm actually used to having a toxic household, its how I started my channel, it won't be the end of it that's for sure.
And this will change once my mom gets another job and moves out, or once I get enough financial stability to move out myself!

I want to give a honorable note for 4 exceptions I met in hell...

1. My trans clinic's administrator, Ailton.
He was amazing, he was incredible, he was in charge of the only clinic in that city that covered trans healthcare, and he was NAILING IT, he made sure to listen to everybody, to address everybody, not a single doctor would get hired without meeting him first so he could make sure they'll not neglect patients and always do an outstanding job.

He helped me, hell, he saved me, when I met him he told me "everything's gonna be alright." and when I left, he said "everything went alright".
He really was single-handedly taking care of every trans person in that city, and I cannot overstate how he made sure to remember everyone.

2. My hair salon, owned by a gay couple where they're both named Marcos.
I ran by their salon on pure chance, while I was still closeted, and they provided a very safe LGBT space throughout my journey, when I met them as myself one of them literally greeted me with "I kneww it!", and they were super supportive at the start of my transition, they even openly agreed with me that from that point forward I was going to be charged the female price for haircuts.

It was a very humble business and a very safe space, surrounded by bars and a fishy neighborhood, it was quite literally a rose in winter, and I very much appreciated finding it.

3. My personal general doctor, Luiz.
Not many people are lucky enough to have a general doctor that they regularly come back to for check-ups, so I was very lucky to find a supportive doctor that very much respected me through everything, people probably know from my past notes on Patreon, that my health has been on critical condition for years now due to neglect, and he single-handedly took care of that.

He gave me a safe space and kept my trust, which allowed me to always be open about each and every health problem I had and every problem that would show up, I appreciate his work, cause it allowed me to heal and get better from a majority of those health problems that I promised people that I'd get it solved.
He would also help me with my HRT, giving prescriptions on much needed blood exams that allowed me to monitor things as clean as day.

Thanks to his help that I know I have +600% more Iron in my blood than normal levels, but he also already figured out that my body is using all that blood normally, so it causes no health problems, I'm officially an Iron Maiden.

Patreon Stuff and Price Changes this month

You all supported me a ton throughout this year, throughout these rough last 3 years that I spent mainly focusing on my mental and physical health, my personal problems, and any issues that came up throughout.

For that I say thank you, from the bottom of my former cold malfunctioning heart, now healthy and fiery as it can be.

There's now a password on the valkyria terminal for those who supported me the most throughout this journey...
HONOR

So my plans this year are simple: I'm going to clean up some rough edges in January and February, and spend full-time on videos afterwards.

One of these rough edges: $1 Tier, I'm going to change it, here's why:

The main goal of $1 tier is for people to support me by giving me $1,
it's simple, right? wrong.
Patreon and PayPal has made this painfully difficult, cause Patreon taxes people, then takes a cut for themselves, and then sends it to PayPal so they take another cut.

I basically receive less than half of that $1 that was supposed to go to me.

So my plans are simple: I'm moving $1 tier to a different website that doesn't take a cut, so it can be properly treated as a donation.

and I'm raising the $1 tier to a $2-3 tier (might vary on tax calculations), but the goal of this tier is to make sure at least a solid $2 reaches me.

New for next month: Annual Memberships (and their discounts)

I'm also planning ahead to enable annual memberships on Patreon, the main and only important difference is that with annual memberships I can set DISCOUNTS! Like a "pay for a year and you get 2 months free!", which surely will benefit you diehard people reading this right now that never stopped believing in me.

I plan on making both of these changes sometime throughout this month so people can start in February having already dealt with these shenanigans.

I'm still picking out the best option for $1 tier to move on from, but I have buymeacoffee or Ko-fi in mind, let me know if there's an even greater third option!

Closing thoughts

Even though this year kicked my ass, I did not stand still, I finished my channel branding and persona (OC as the kids call it), and you can find it with password:

WILL YOU FIND ME

You can also find all the new art assets I made this year in #angelical-assets on Discord, you need the ♥ role from #role-rift though.
You probably saw the new banner in my channel, so here it is in full glory.
With the main character drawn by Not David.

Sorry for this year's production inactivity, here's hoping next one is the one.