ArcAngela
patreon
2021 and plans for 2022
🕑 Added 2021-12-20 16:11:09 +0000 UTCSpent a good chunk this year trying not to die and addressing mental and physical health, as it was made obvious by inactivity and radio silence...
For the people who are still around, here's the plans for next year:
• Been heavily considering switching from Patreon
Being honest, Patreon this year has been somewhat of a nuisance as a platform, with changes to how they charge me and you, with taxes sometimes being absurd, and with a lot of tools that just never worked and they still don't work...
Specially with recent events that showed they are interested in working with crypto and NFTs, which I cannot support, and the possibility of being paid in a currency that doesn't have fixed, stable values is absurd.
I've been considering either facing a new approach to work around Patreon or just ditching it entirely for other platforms like Ko-Fi.
Regardless, I have plans to kill at least half the tiers I have, so I'm left with $1 $5 and $10, the reason I had so many tiers at first was to match the thematic of the rainbow that my channel branding had, and to also make funny numbers like $69 tier.
Over the years this died down really hard with new branding, the introduction of taxes breaking the funny numbers, and with the constant attempt to make rewards for said tiers, with the concept of fun being thrown under the bus as time passed.
For people unaware, when you become a patron you can still select any amount you'd like, so people who insist on paying me more than $10 can still do so, just that they'll count as the respective max tier ($10) in the future
I'm down to receive feedback, but keep in mind that this change is to make my Patreon more appealing to support, not to "harm myself cause I don't deserve $50 tier"
It makes managing rewards easier, taxes lower, and matches other platforms so I can make consistency a thing (YouTube and Twitch both have 3 tiers respectively)
On a different note: I've been slowly addressing Patreon in the back to be less centered around YouTube, I've stressed this for years, Patreon always felt like a job on YT, but I placed this on myself, going forward I want to see and think of patreon as people supporting me, and all that I do, not just videos, but all the mods, servers, communities and projects I create.
You're free to re-read page descriptions, and goals and what not, to see if things are conveying this new format, and you're free to tell me if you agree or disagree with this, or what you look forward to (like a server, or a mod)
• Why do I make such a big deal about helth
For people unaware, up until 2020 I was suicidal, YT was nothing but one of the many tactics that I chose to slowly kill myself by ignoring health issues and harming myself through crunch cause I had the comforting thought that if I died at least people would get inspired by the work I put out.
Dec 2019 changed my mind, so for the last 2 years I've been addressing old wounds, bad habits and the horrible, critical health that I have.
I'm still very far from done on physical, but at least on mental health I can say I got most things figured out...
I fucked up a lot in the past 2 years, and mostly because I'm unstable and I never addressed personal problems, this was never an issue when I'm just another face on the monitor, but it became an issue as people went after me, the creator, and wanted to meet me as a person.
I didn't exactly plan for my channel to work out, even less that I'd have to put up with being an actually decent person, faced a lot of consequence for not being, but if there's one thing I'm good at is at leaving the past behind me...
My physical health is still in critical condition, critical as in "a misstep and I collapse again", and I've been trying really hard to address this, but its been really tough when social anxiety, covid, and the general environment I live in being unsafe and unfriendly towards anything out of the norm (can't be too tall, can't be too pale, can't have too bright hair, wear too much color, etc)
• Leaving Hell
Need to get my life going, and currently I live in a city that cannot allow me to grow any further, where hardship becomes too much, my life situation is currently at the peak of the mountain, this place cannot provide me anything above me, I have to reach out myself if I want to go higher.
I'm at the limit of internet speed this stupid city can provide, I'm at the limit of how far my mental health can take by going outside without hurting me, I'm at the limit of what can I actually achieve here, I ordered a controller for smash on October, a month later they say it never managed to reach me, I cannot afford fancy things like soundpads and equipment without compromise because of this place.
I've been considering leaving this and going back to my hometown southeast of the country, so I can grow and settle there until I can finally move out of the country, but the trade-off doesn't seem worthwhile, so it needs time and experimenting
Family back in my hometown is 50/50 and has strong emotions about me being trans, so while I'd be much more capable and have a much friendlier environment outside, my household would likely be toxic or unhelpful, while I have experience with toxic households, I can't predict how awful would this be to my mental health.
My main concern is health, cause when I face health problems I just address this with my mom, she works on medicine so in 2 days any health problem is addressed or dealt with, this would be absent in my hometown, so I don't know who would be there to help if I collapse, or if they'd even know what to do.
• Branding and self-image
So here's a nitpick I always had with myself, I always strive to be legit, to be honest, to be truthful, to just be me, if I described myself as "internet mom" I myself had to earn this title or confirm it through my actions, not just my words.
This held true to how I'd handle branding and self-image online, we all know I use the same profile pictures with the same patterns of blonde girl wearing green hoodie, I refuse to call myself a fan of something unless I can prove it, I refuse to say I'm the best until I reach it.
I spent a lot of this year in conflict around this, cause I wanted to be called many good things, I wanted to be seen as a paragon of hope, of peace, of exemplar behavior, a guardian angel
Over the years I saw a lot of how much of me was reflected in other people, people would see me as fiery, fierce, stubborn, cold, and deservingly so, cause I was doing very little to address myself.
From experience I know full well that I'd only be called such things if I earned those titles, not if I self-entitled to them.
So I worked really hard on fixing myself and how I deal with things, it's been a really tough battle, to both break my beliefs that held myself in place and mentalities I've adopted during years of home abuse and trauma.
I've often looked at it like a shield, you pick one up to survive, but you've been holding it for so long, you can't just drop it, even tho the war seems over, the tough times are long behind you, you know it's purpose, you know how much it allowed you to survive, so you're not ever sure if it's safe to let go of the shield.
It took me a long time to realize I made that shield myself, if conflict were to ever arise again, I will make another one, so I can let go, and give myself some peace, the knowledge and experience will stay with me, they don't weight me down like the shield did.
I still can't safely tell if I'm earning those titles already, but I know I'm getting there, and I figured sharing some thoughts about this would allow people to judge by themselves and see for themselves if I'm doing it right or if I'm strafing away from those goals.
I want to defend and show people that there's always hope, there's always a way, it always gets better, I want to express this in everything I do, not just when "I feel at my best", I want to show how unbreakable they can be at their worse, and how undefeatable one can be at their best.
I know some of the enemies I made in the past will read this, so to you, I apologize for how things went, for how I mistreated and mishandled things, how childish my behavior often was, as well as impulsive and irresponsible. I admit to my mistake.
I'm not looking for forgiveness, I'm just leaving this behind, I owed at least an apology to those I mistreated and harmed.
I allow anyone who reads this to judge and criticize me as harshly and truthfully as possible, if I am ever to misbehave and miss the mark on what I aim to be.
I promise I will do better, and at least on the matter of promises, I never break them.
