I need to explore TG or I will explode. (Patreon)

…and it is a need.

I’ve dabbled in TG in the past (tofubara?) but each time I’ve felt embarrassed and ashamed of exploring that (aspect of myself) in my work. I’ve been working through some personal shit recently, particularly around my own repressed queerness and femininity and obsession with masculinity and being masculine that I developed after being abused as punishment for exploring my feminine side as a child. )

My motivation for my TF art has always been fundamentally an exploration of my own wibbly wobbly identity, but somewhere along the line the kind of ideas I want to explore have moved on, but my art hasn’t. I think this has been a big part of why I have got down so many times over the last few years. Each time I really get into a groove where I’m prolific and working every day, I start getting this ache about the things I want to explore in my art - but feel I mustn’t because ‘futobara’ has become known for a specific kind of thing.

I’ve thought about creating a new pseudonym to explore the tg side of things, but in many ways that would feel like fracturing myself even more than I already am. futobara is already very separate from my every day life, and sometimes that can be hard. I don’t want to splinter myself further.

I’m worried about many things. “Will patrons leave in droves? Will they be upset? Will I expose too much of myself? Will this aspect of myself be mocked or rejected? Can I handle that? Will I be swept up and labelled as LGBT rather than an individual who is just who he is? Will I offend people because the characters are over sexualised or stereotypical? Will my work attract negative attention from activists who don’t like the tone? What would my family say if they found out? What if someone logs in for the first time in months and sees things they don’t want to see?” And so on…

So this is where I’m at. I ended up having to take a few days off to clear my head, talk to friends, really think about what happens next. I have a lot of commissions to do and this page needs an update - and yet I’ve been paralysed to draw anything. As an artist, as a soul motivated by exploration and expression of the light and dark within myself, and as a boy who was quite comfortable acting like a girl or a boy until his parents (who didn’t know any better, still love them!) punished and humiliated him for exploring that side of himself in a healthy, comfortable way - I really need to do this.

I would like your blessing to explore M2F and F2M content for a bit. I particularly want to play with couples TFs and all the potential dynamics therein, once I’ve done a few practise pieces.

It might be possible to rejig the tiers to optionally separate them between M2M and other, but that would create its own problems, and depending on the response this gets, that might not be necessary.

There is also a risk that I’ll do this for a few weeks then pretend it never happened, like every time I’ve done it before. (Another reason I’m wary of changing everything up too much!) But that will be me putting this aspect of myself back in a box and I my dudes really need to air this laundry.

Apologies for the whiny narcissistic artist vibes. I’m a mess at the moment but you can’t clean a closet without pulling it all out first.

And if TG is not your thing, I will understand completely if you no longer wish to subscribe. You don’t owe me anything and I thank you sincerely for your patronage and support thus far <3

Literally the best response to this would be that none of us are really that bothered and it I’m massively overthinking. But what do you think? Please don’t be shy with your thoughts. Leave a comment here or head to the chat section. Community is a good thing for me right now.

Thank you for reading this.