The State of FanterFane (Patreon)

Hi, everyone.

This may be my most important post that I've ever made up to this point, so I'm going to try my best to be as genuine as possible. Please bear with me.

I've been running from certain problems for years now, but I've inevitably finally run out of track. It's come time for me to admit it, I am struggling. Drawing has become progressively harder and harder over the past few months to the point where I can't even bear to look at my tablet some days. Despite all of your wonderful continued love and support, I just can't seem to keep up this facade anymore. Normally I can get through art block with enough effort, but this runs deeper than that. To the very core of my being.

NSFW kink art. Transformation, feminization, possession, etc. I've loved this stuff for as long as I can remember, and from what I've gathered you all seem to love seeing whatever new obsession I come up with and draw. However, doing this as a full time job has created some... tension in my family. I spend long hours drawing "X-Rated shit" as it's been described to me. On top of that, add being bisexual and a rejection of traditional masculinity as a guy and you've got one hell of a misunderstanding cocktail for your southern traditional conservative Christian family. Hallelujah.

Despite everything, I have spent the past 3 years, the most difficult years for everyone in recent history, working on myself. I've lost weight, I've gotten good at drawing, I've gotten better at expressing myself, and so much more. For the first time in my life I feel like I'm actually developing towards the person that I want to be, rather than what other people want me to be. Online, I've found many wonderful, understanding, and supportive people who remain to be the sole reason I've been able to develop and explore long repressed parts of myself. I love all of you to hell and back for that, because otherwise I would never be as happy as I am now. But as the years have gone on I've found myself lacking support from some of the people I want to love me the most.

And it hurts. So much.

It's enough to make me question whether or not I want to continue doing this. Despite all the support. I've gotten offers to send me back to school for a different job, and I'd be lying if I said I hadn't considered it. There's still so much I want to make, but I just don't know what to do if I struggle to even pick up a pen because I know there's no love from loved ones in it. I can't create the best goddamn 40 page kink comic ever and be a pillar of the local offline community, after all. If anything, I'd just be ostracized more for it.

There's so, so much more to all of this. It's beyond intimidating to try to tackle some of these problems by myself. I'm not even entirely sure what I want from posting this, other than maybe that it may help others going through something similar. By letting them see that they're not alone, like how I feel now more than ever. At the very least, I'm making my struggles known, rather than keeping it bottled up all to myself like I've done for most of my life. Once again, I can't even begin thank all of you properly for your continued support, especially in these trying times. And please, be sure to take care of yourselves too.

With love, FanterFane.