Warning, I'm being whiny again, feel free to ignore me. I may delete this later.

So between stuff like working on paid for art and using my Twitter to vent out my silly moments, I also research stuff. A lot of stuff.

Among the things I research are how others have managed with their own Patreon accounts. I then start to wonder what's really stopping me from finishing up my own Patreon?

In short, it's because I'm cowardly and feel I don't deserve it.

I still have commission backlogs I'm catching up with at a snail's pace (they're not hard, just time-consuming + my dumb perfectionist self is being dumb about it). I'm completely useless for art trades with very rare exceptions. I'm still struggling to get a job in anything, let alone the stuff I went to university for. Above all else it's because I can't seem to settle on some decent reward incentives that are both fair to the people who like my work for whatever reason and to myself.

And part of the reason for that is because I fear myself falling out of love with the one real talent I have developed over the years.

It's not exactly an art block. I can still draw simple stuff like what I do during my Friday streams and I can still work on said commission backlog (even if I'm too slow for my liking). The problem is when I want to draw for myself, moreso if I want to draw something that isn't fanart. Even when I have time for myself, like how I have made myself do on weekends, I'm lucky to get even a doodle done, let alone a completed piece.

Have I been poisoned so much by people's feedback that I can't draw things for myself unless I know there are people out there that care? I should know better than this. I KNOW better than this. I KNOW I have enough people who watch me for my silly drawn antics no matter what the theme is. I KNOW I have an awesome fanbase who have stuck by me for years to look at my stuff and whatever else I can cook up. I KNOW I have friends who care for me as a person as well as an artist.

I KNOW this in my head...so why can't I make the rest of me believe it? Why can't the rest of me allow herself to chill out, draw whatever I wanna draw and not worry that drawing for me is a waste of time and money? I mean, yeah, I know part of the issue is my current money worries, but surely that shouldn't stop me from enjoying the very thing I grew up doing for so long, should it? Heck, I remember back in the days of Yerf when I was so in love with drawing whatever that the idea for asking for money in exchange for art repulsed me. And a part of me is repulsed still by that idea, but for a different reason entirely.

I don't expect replies. I won't blame anyone for wanting to tear me a new one for this depressing talk. I just...needed to say something in the hopes my own words will give me an answer, or something else entirely.

Hopefully, this feeling will pass. And maybe then will that Patreon happen or find a better means of keeping a decent amount of money coming in during the months to stop me from whining so much and feeling like this. This feeling sucks and I hate it and I want it gone already!