🏳️‍🌈~Happy June 1st and Happy Pride!~🏳️‍🌈

First of all, Happy Pride Month everyone! As a local card carrying Queer person, I hope all of you have a good one whether you are a member of the alphabet mafia or not!

I'm back from my trip and I had a wonderful time, and while I do think that the trip has helped my mental health, it's very obvious to all of you that I'm still struggling, and I don't want to leave my supporters in the lurch anymore.

It's no surprise that this model of doing Patreon (that's stayed relatively the same for the most part) is no longer viable to me. My therapist agreed that I am—and have been—severely burnt out, and so I've made some decisions about what I'm going to do to not only set myself up for success, but also keep making audios and other things for you.

I often forget that—even after all this time—a large handful of my supporters are truly here to support me. They do enjoy the things that I put out, but the bottom line is that it's me that's kind of the selling point? My skills, my personality, the things I create; there are a large group of you that will support me no matter what I do, and that's been really hard for me to accept? It's bad imposter syndrome I think, and a mixture of other things, but the bottom line is that I need to make some decisions and some changes that benefit me, so that I can keep up with this for years to come.

Now please don't panic! I know that sounds like I'm going to pop off into the ether again, but from the help of friends and other concerned community members, we have come up with a plan that I am far more confident in than I have been in the past. I want to kind of break it down for you and explain some of the reasoning behind these decisions so you all know what to expect in the future. I've always tried to do my best to be honest on here, because you all deserve it.

Starting off, I want to reassure you that I will not be leaving you without any new audios this month. I will be taking old commissions that I haven't shared before and posting them. I need to realize that some content is better than no content at all.

✨If you would like to kind of skip over my explanations and reasoning, scroll down to the divider down below and get the TL;DR.✨

One of the biggest struggles I've been having is with creativity and freedom and fear. With burnout, it's a struggle to do anything creative, less alone be constrained to a box by outside forces. It's why I've been so behind with audios. From the beginning I've wanted my Patrons to have a 'say' in what's being created. When I first started out, I wanted my Patreon to seem "worth it" for the price, so I implemented the theme polls as well as the character polls. Nearly 5 years later and these mostly innocuous decisions have become rather crippling. So for the foreseeable future, I will be removing those from my creative process. Being allowed to make any kind of audio I want being any character I want I believe will help me so I don't feel pressured to make something specific.

In congruence with that, I have found that I do feel constrained by only making audios of characters that are from previously established media. I know I've done a few "non character" audios in the past, but I find myself yearning a lot more for creative freedom, and so I've also decided that while I will still be making audios of the characters that you know and love me for, I am also going to shift and allow myself to create more audios where there is no specific character that I'm portraying. More of a "boyfriend" or "partner" audio than anything, including NSFW. Again, I feel that this will give me more freedom of creative expression and give me more room to help with the burnout.

I also want to allow myself to make audios that are varying in length. Again, from the beginning I've been constantly struck with the idea that I need to make my Patreon "worth it" for Patrons, so the more time has gone on, the more complex and long some of the audios have become, especially the NSFW ones. I know you all appreciate the effort, but at the trajectory I was going, it wasn't going to end well. I want to be able to create audios of varying length, with different scenarios, and not feel guilty doing it.

Going off of that, I also miss making different types of audios for you all. I know that a while back I removed my let's plays and my audio book readings from my Patreon, just because they were taking up so much of my time and people weren't as invested, and once again, I was putting "rules" on myself to make them long so again, my Patreon seemed worth it (see some of the stupid things my brain makes up lol).

So what does that mean for you all, the Patrons? Well, it's not happening this month, but I will start making efforts of changing my Patreon tiers and what they entail, as well as making a wider variety of content. The vision that I've come up with—with help of course—is turning more towards multi-media instead of just audios. The audios will still be there and will be more of the main focus, however.

I want to be able to have other avenues of creation and share them when I'm struggling with audio creation, because again, some content is better than nothing. This has led to the decision of doing some changes—that once again wont be implemented immediately—in the tiers once again. Less extreme specificity, and more relaxed.

✨This is how I would like to break it down:✨

          $1—Mostly the same: Access to high quality downloads of archived audios as well as the AMA and access to the Discord server.

          $3—New: This tier I want to have as a "I would like to support you with a little more than a dollar" tier, where I would give access to the multi-media style content that I would like to create. This tier however will not have strict rules as to what or when I am posting, but this is for those Patrons who want to support me, but do not want to/cannot afford the higher tier. As an idea of possible multimedia content in the future include but aren't limited to:

                    🟡 Easy 30 sec to 1 min audios that are like wake up alarms or
                             encouragements/advice.

                    🟡 Speedpaint videos, possibly sometimes a speedpaint of thumbnail art for Patreon

                    🟡 Shorter Let's Play Episodes: Think Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, The Sims.
                             Perhaps even bigger/longer games if/when I am up to it.

                    🟡 Poem Readings

                    🟡 Some of my Photography if there are those interested

                    🟡 Fiction writing, fanfic or otherwise

I don't want to call this tier necessarily "filler", but I want it to be more of the place for me to be able to still create if I'm struggling creating one certain type of media. You'll also still get access to everything the $1 tier has.

         $20—Mostly the same: I will be getting rid of the $7 SFW tier, and will just be combining them and the NSFW audios as well as the bloopers to make an "audio" tier. I will also be removing the very strict "two of SFW and two of NSFW" structure of the past because again, it was made when I was trying to make everything seem "worth it". I want to try for at least three audios a month, where at least one is NSFW. Those on this tier will also have all of the access of the previous tiers. 

I know this is a lot of change, and again, I want to strongly reiterate that it's not all happening immediately, and I cannot thank you all enough for your continued support as I figure myself and the trajectory of this Patreon out. You truly have made me realize that a lot of you support me because you like me and what I create, and you've actually given me the bravery and confidence to even make these changes in the first place.

And I know that there are those of you who are here for certain benefits and certain characters, and if these changes are making you second guess being a Patron of mine, I fully understand. I just want you guys to know that I'm not going to forget about you regardless. A lot is happening and changing and it's probably going to take some time to get things figured out, but I always want to remind people that they are under no obligation to support me no matter how long or how short you have been, and that I still am so thankful for your support.

The backlog of audios that I have will continue to be worked on, but I don't want to make any more empty promises when it comes to when they're coming out. The scripts are already all written, so I think it will be a waste to not finish them, but I again, I'm not going to promise when they'll be released. Thank you for understanding.

I also will be finishing outstanding commissions I have first and foremost, so those of you who are waiting on a commission I have not forgot about you, and once again I apologize for the waits some of you have had.

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✨TL;DR for those who don't want to read my novel lol: ✨

Changes are happening, but they're all in the spirit of being able to make more content for you all, not less, and also allow me more creative freedom so that I do not become even more burnt out. If you do not want to stay due to the changes, there is no obligation, and once again thank you to all of those who have continually kept me afloat with your support.

I want to get back to interacting with you all more again. I can't promise anything huge, but burnout has an unfortunate side effect of withdrawing socially, and I would like to get out of that and remember how much Patrons and fans really do like me and not just the things I put out.

You have all been amazing, and it's because of you that I get to do this as my job, and I seriously cannot thank you all enough. Mental health and work/life balance is a continuous struggle for a neurodivergent person like myself, and I'm trying to get better at the idea of change and evolution. Thank you for letting me do this, and I am feeling more confident in this than I have in a long while.

Once again I hope you all have a Happy Pride Month, and please be kind to yourselves! 💚