Hello, it's been a whole while!

With this post I want to sincerely apologize for my long absence, lack of posting, and even inability to update you, knowing well, that the date I wanted to resume continuing Little Starling, had passed.

I thank you for your incredible patience and support. However I understand anyone's decision to terminate patronage, as I was not able to give anything in return.

Ever since I stopped posting Little Starling and started two part time jobs around a year ago, a lot of things within the online world have changed that have greatly influenced my thoughts on how to continue. And I have also learned a lot about how I as an artist would like to continue.
I will try and update you as best as I can point by point in the following. It's going to be long:

• Webtoons ToS:
  Webtoons (WT in the following) announced it for a long time but shortly after I started my hiatus they implemented and age rating system. As a creator you get a questionaire that you have to tick boxes in so it can age rate your work appropriately. Unfortunately, since WT is a South Korea and USA based company, the rating system is very rigid.
  Drinking alcohol, smoking and lusty insinnuations (you know, everything Zazu loves) immediately rates the comic 16-18+ and limits it's visibility and may even disqualify the comic from being promoted on the front page!
  This is REALLY BAD because without promotion it is nearly impossible to get eyes on my comic. Sure, I post on Tapas too, but they don't have the reader traffic that WT has. And I don't want to have to censor my comic even further just to fit WT ToS.
  I agree that 13 year olds shouldn't see anything explicit, but the way WT goes about age gating content and hiding visibility harms artists more than anything. It's just a symptom of enshittification to be quite honest, they haven't improved artist's side of the platform in years.
  Sooo my conclusion was to just make my own website at some point. This will take a lot of time and has one big problem: How do I get reader traffic? Which leads to the second point:

• I went viral (on Twitter):
  Around the same time I started the hiatus I got into Dungeon Meshi by Ryoko Kui. It is an incredible story in my opinion, though being a lighthearted adventure with comedy, it somehow touches on the same themes as old, dark, european fairy tales. Not directly but viscerally it feels the same and it has to do with eating and consumption in every aspect and it's just SO down my alley, I started "The Labru Comic" on Twitter.
  What should have been a 16 page Fan-Manga about cannibalism and dreams, became longer and more sexually explicit and gorey (it's over 80 pages now) than I had planed and people LOVED IT!!!
  During my employment I was running on so little energy I used art solely as an outlet for personal stuff to 'draw whatever'. The resonance I got boosted my confidence immensely and I am so grateful for it. I was able to be more earnest and vulnerable in my work and peel away facades of myself that made it difficult for me to tell a succinct story, and I think my work profited a lot from that.
  My follower numbers sarted soaring on all SocMed platforms and I think now, a year later, I can comfortably say: if I make my own website for my comic(s), I will have enough people to follow me to that site.
  Unfortunately due to Twitter and now Bluesky being easy on their ToS, I only felt safe posting these comics there. I considered posting them on here too multiple times. There is a lot of guilt involved for me. I didn't want to post only snippets or only the fluff or comedic stuff. This should be the place I post it all! But the next point was standing in my way...

• Patreon ToS:
  Also around the same time Patreon tightened their restrictions on what was allowed to be posted. They are right to do so in my opinion, distribution of illegal material especially now with the AI bubble needs to nipped in the bud. But their restrictions unfortunately also spanned over art.
  There was one rule that said (and I'm abbreviating): 'Before an explicit adult act takes place, the involved parties have to say on film that they enthusiastically consent to what is about to be filmed.'
  Surely they didn't expect that from artists but I also don't want to have to send every NSFW illustration I make for approval to Patreon HQ. EVERYTHING has become a case on a grey scale, especially with the themes I explore in the Labru Comic: cannibalism, Beasty stuff and gorey explicit acts. I can't even link to it.
  Online artists I am acquainted with that make similar adult art (though they are admittedly much larger), have had their Patreon accounts closed down without warning and that is a risk I am not willing to take. I still don't have a solution for how to handle this. Maybe I need to ask Patreon directly what level of artistic expression is okay. Maybe I do need to have everything manually approved. I honestly don't know.

• The general state of Social Media:
  Within the last year all social media plattforms and the political atmosphere have changed SO MUCH. Though I have my largest follower group on Twitter and I don't plan on leaving just yet, even though it has become SO BAD. Silicon Valley has now openly started bowing to extreme right wing politics and the online space might soon become very unwelcoming for queer stories. I will post where I can for as long as I can but I suggest, you follow me on as many social apps as possible, as best as you are able to, if you want to stay updated with me.
  But this shift has also made me think about if I want to continue on my path of being an online artist. With the success I am having now it would be foolish not to, but I feel like I still need to keep my offline work going. All this has unfortunately become an unstable goal.

• Work-Work Balance:
  While full time employed with work that had very difficult deadlines and required a bunch of all-nighters, I realized, I am unable to run a Patreon, that I have so many obligations to while working.
  I wasn't able to offer anything that required disciplining my art output and that, admittedly, made me question if I should even continue.
  Now I have more time to dedicate to you again and I want to lower the workload for me so that in the future, when I have other jobs again, I can run this place a little more effortlessly and still have stuff to offer you in exchange for your continued support!

Work had me burnt out by the end of last year and additionally I had the probably worst flare up of my chronic illness ever, which landed me in the hospital at the beginning of January. But I am doing better now and had enough time to think of my next steps! :)

1. I want to get rid of all the tiers and only have one for 5€, a basic support tier! Everything will be there, even the NSFW stuff! It's easier for me and I don't lose oversight. This might require you guys to change your support, but give you the infos in advance before changing.

2. I will pause charge for 6 months! Unfortunately I can only pause charge for one month at a time, so I will have to renew the pause every month on the same day. If charges happen before the 14. August, please let me know and I will reimburse you.

3. I will slowly start posting on here again! Though I won't be able to post the really saucy stuff, I have not been inactive and there is TONS of back log and I want you to see it. It isn't Little Starling related art though, more fan art. I hope you can nonetheless enjoy it too!

4. I have started working together with my dear friend Nen from Webcomics Hub and they have started helping me get my ass up and working towards printed collections of my work. And general overall organizing of what I am even doing on here. My strength at this point in my life admittedly lies more with creating art and stories and not with marketing myself. But with help everything is possible!

5. Little Starling is still on Hiatus as the demand for printed fan works from Arcane and Dungeon Meshi are high and I need to make money. But once this is done I plan on turning a page and resuming to Little Starling, with a hopefully easier and faster style (we will see about that haha).

Thank you again from the bottom of my heart for staying with me. Let the journey continue!

Love, Pearl♥