Important PSA - Please read. (Patreon)

Let me just start off by asking you all to sign this petition (if you haven't already) and spread it around as far and wide as you can before I get into the details, thanks.

https://action.aclu.org/petition/mastercard-sex-work-work-end-your-unjust-policy

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Part one: The situation.

So here's the deal, from what I can gather anyway. Mastercard is the biggest and most-used payment processor for businesses, large or small. And they are and have been lobbied by an American-based anti-sex organization named the National Center of Sexual Exploitation. They are an independent, conservative lobbying group whose ultimate goal is to make all forms of sexualized and/or erotic content everywhere illegal. Not just online, but everywhere.

But luckily they have not been very successful in reaching that ultimate goal since they were first founded in 1962. They have however been very successful in lobbying Mastercard into making their policies more and more restrictive for everyone creating erotic content. Recently, they succeeded in pushing Mastercard further and now the policies here on Patreon are more restrictive as a result. Specifically the topic of consent has become much, much more difficult for creators to follow along.

I quote: https://www.patreon.com/policy/guidelines#sexually-gratifying-works

"Consent

It is paramount that Adult/18+ creators demonstrate consent in all works (real or animated; photo, video, written, audio) between adult participants or characters; specifically, a freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of consent by a statement or by a clear affirmative action. Additionally, participants and characters must be able to give consent (i.e. not be under the influence of alcohol, drugs, hypnosis, blackmail). “Consensual non-consent” works, in which participants or characters engage in simulated non-consensual encounters, are not permitted. Accompanying a work that features a non-consensual encounter with a statement claiming that the encounter was consensual is a violation of Patreon guidelines."

If you read between the lines here, what patreon categorizes as consent is very, very vague. And more specifically, even if a character states outright "I consent," it may not actually count.

This is scary because of how vague it is, but it is also somewhat comforting. You see, whenever a corporation is vague about their policies, it's a sign that they are balancing between the responsibilities that they have towards a higher power, like Mastercard, and the financial bottom line that we creators support them with. If Patreon and us creators had less leverage against Mastercard, Patreon would just say "No porn, fuck off."

Right now, we creators are in the eye of the hurricane and the moment the winds start hurting Patreon's financial state, we're all gonna get blown out. So regardless of how "safe" I might think we are, we're very much not safe until the storm subsides.

So what to do?

Well, for now, please sign that petition and spread it to everywhere you can.

Onward from that, I'm not sure, but I have some plans.

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Part 2: Plans for an unsure future.

Below is a list of scenarios and the solutions I feel can work for me. Whether they work for you or for my artist friends, I can't say. That's all up to Patreon, Mastercard and of course you. I am writing them down however so that you know what might be happening. I've always treasured honesty and transparency and I would never want to hide anything regarding this issue from you, my amazing and lovely friends and patrons <3

• Nothing happens beyond what already has happened (All content will be excessively consensual)
  This is likely not going to be the case. It feels like the NCOSE and Mastercard aren't really being pushed in the opposite direction for Patreon to just keep their policies stagnant. Which basically means that I will have to restrict a lot of what I make here. Transformations aren't technically "sex" so it exists in a very vague space of what's allowed on here, but I'm not keen on taking any risks which basically means that there can't be even a HINT of dubious consent in future comics, pinups and minicomics. This sucks because while I like consent, keeping it a little ambigious helps spice things up. Essentially, all content will just be very overtly consensual, which is fine in theory, but might get boring in the long run.

• Things get worse 1 (Subscribe$tar migration, also there's a poll below where I just want to know if you are on SubStar, not if you're interested in moving, we can take that another time)
  In case Mastercard gets even more restrictive and pressures Patreon into being more restrictive in turn, or even flat out bans erotic art, I will look into moving everything towards SubStar. I think this is a fairly likely scenario considering how things have been moving already. I honestly don't really want to do this because I know that getting setup on SubStar is really annoying and difficult, not to mention that you would all have to be inconvinienced to move with me. However this might be the most secure long-term solution so it's an attractive solution at least.

• Things get worse 2 (Everything will be kept between us, don't tell anyone)
  My other solution for if Mastercard ruins everything is that polls and suggestions will still be things that'll happen, but only SFW/consensual content will be available here on patreon. For example, the actual comic parts of the minicomics might be available for everyone on dA, FA and/or cohost, but not the final pinups which will only be available here on patreon. I don't know how to manage long-form comics however. They might just not be possible to keep on here depending on how much worse it gets. It's also possible that I can skirt the rules by hosting the content somewhere else, though that would have to be done in a very secretive way since linking to prohibited content can also be unallowed.

• Things get worse 3 (No more crowdfunding, now I'll just do commissions)
  In case things get as bad as above or even worse, I might just have to give up patreon with the polls and suggestions altogether. If SubStar doesn't work either it means I'll just have to make a living doing commissions, which I don't think is impossible, but I've really learned to love doing Patreon content, creating all these cool settings and letting you people direct where the stories go and also seeing your amazing creativity. I think this is not that likely and I will try everything to make sure this won't be the solution.

• Things get better (Patreon and Mastercard chills out)
  There's a slim chance that the ACLU petition could work and Mastercard lays off. Either they'll just stop where they are (Bad, but it could be worse) or they accept that sex work and erotic art are genuine venues of business and backs down a bit (Good, please make this happen). In this case there'll be nothing that'll change here, things go on as they are doing and I won't have to make everything overtly consensual.

And those are my expectations and solutions. I wish I could read the future so that I can prepare already, but alas I'm no soothsayer.

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Part 3: What I am currently doing and planning.

So with all of that out of the way, here's what is already going on.

I'm currently going through everything that I've posted and I'm removing anything that I suspect can be interpreted as non-consensual. All of those things are still available on my dA and FA, and some is up on Cohost as well, so nothing's lost. I'm really sorry for the inconvenience though.

Secondly I'm trying to promot the ACLU campaign as much as I can everywhere I can and I really urge that you do that as well if you want to continue seeing content like what I'm making.

And thirdly, I have an idea. An idea that could be incredibly powerful if people actually decide to follow along. If the NCOSE is able to convince Mastercard to change their policies, we could do the same. And I'm not talking about each of us sending emails to some support AI at Mastercard's HQ. I'm talking about us creators, and you friends, patrons, fans and followers sending Patreon emails about this issue and urging them to speak with Mastercard.

Remember what I wrote, if Patreon saw adult content creators as a genuine threat to their financial bottom line, they would have already said "fuck off" to us. But they're not doing that yet because right now, we are making Patreon enough money for them to remain vague regarding their policies.

If a dumb little conservative org like the NCOSE can push Mastercard to change their policies, imagine what Patreon could do? Last I checked, Patreon is valued somewhere around 1.5 billion dollars. That's 1.5 billion dollars of persuasion power.

I am going to push this idea to everyone of my artist friends, because I genuinely believe that if we pool our power as creators together with your patreon voices and wallets, we can do something. And that's better than just waiting for nothing to change or for things to just get worse.

For now though, don't start writing emails. We need to be organized with this and like I said, I'm gonna try to get my other artist pals to join in because we need to be many in on this. This post is going to be public so that people can see this part in particular. I want to make this as organized as possible so there'll be a proper post for this plan in the future, but feel free to share this around if you will.

Thank you all for your amazing support and patience as always, and thank you for reading <3