zaush
patreon
Recent Events
🕑 Added 2018-03-17 02:43:14 +0000 UTCHello Patrons,
Patreon Trust and Safety staff have notified me of the temporary hold on my account while they looked into matters of mass complaints against me. The investigation found that the conversation happened before my patreon account existed, and was outside of the realm of my involvement here, so the account is being reinstated this Saturday evening. I've been asked to inform all of you about what has been happening over the past two weeks.
Most of you are probably aware that there's been a lot of drama on twitter about a private telegram chat between myself and Cobalt. It was a discussion about an art commission involving a character of his (Briannah, which has since been purchased by another), with a tentative plan to age her down for an adult commission. It has been my policy for some time to keep works of that nature unposted and for the owner's private collection.
To be clear, our discussion pertained entirely to furry characters and contained absolutely no illegal materials (contrary to people's claims). In the end, the commission was dropped for lack of interest and/or funding. I've had time to reflect on the words used in the conversation and how they were inappropriate, especially when juxtaposed next to photos. I don't personally use photographic reference for drawing characters, apart from bodybuilder musculature and animal head/body reference. That discussion itself happened in November of 2016, and I had a followup discussion with Cobalt in July of 2017 addressing her concerns of the words used, and we both agreed to not again have an exchange resembling the one we'd had the prior year.
To clarify, no artwork involving minors will ever be posted to patreon, or be associated to my patreon account.
I've also been getting a lot of questions as to how the chat logs were obtained and why they were released. The person who leaked the information was an ex roommate who was living with me during most of 2017, and who had access to my home computers and iPad (which I didn't keep passcode locked, since it rarely left my home). The photos were taken by my girlfriend at the time without permission, who soon after confronted me with concern that this was a discussion of real people. I explained the nature of the brainstorming (art commission), but for the sake of needing validation, the photos were shared to my roommate who had been close friends with me. He held on to them for the following year and a half without my or her knowledge. Threats were made on kiwifarms by him to release information, as well as doxxing my address, but it wasn't until March 3rd that he sent threats over text message demanding that I delete a backup of his laptop from my home server, which he had been using to keep his data backed up until he obtained an external hard drive. I ignored his demands and blocked his number, and the chat logs were distributed to lulz.net the very next day from an anonymous account. His involvement is ongoing, and is being documented for legal reasons.
Activists on twitter are falsely presenting the idea that there was illegal activity going on, which has lead to groups of individuals filing complaints to FA, twitter, Patreon, and others. These claims also include false accusations of sexual assault as well, which I've addressed in 2010, as well as 2014. If you're interested in my response to that specifically, you can find a copy of my journal complete with chat logs here. To clarify, I have no criminal record of any kind, and can stand by my words on this matter.
Thanks for reading this, I hope it helps clear up any questions you may have about what's been going on. Thank you for the support as well, it keeps me drawing, which I love to do. My goal has always been to create art that excites the imagination and passion of others in the furry community, and you all help make that possible.
If you have further questions, I'm always available over DM.
Comments
BunnyArtist47
Wild
furry
Sadly haters gonna take every opportunity to twist stuff to their view, no matter if reality dose not conform. Glad the mess is going away.
Zack Goos
Totally to your side. It's always sad to have to deal with people like that.
Tennyo
haters should be really salty right now because adam has even more patrons now haha
Gebreel
Sadly as people are mired in all manner of fetishes they somehow feel they can judge.
Simon-Phillip Dosser
I'm glad you're back and can't wait for things to make their way back to normal and this whole situation can be put behind you and everyone involved.
Greg
Hey man! Saw that crap going around. Stand tall and keep your dignity. Proud of you. Love your art and looking forward to whatever you create next!
Zaush
<3
Harris_the_Foxx
I unfortunately do not have a paragraph or two to post, but as a mentor once said to me, "you can't fix stupid". Sometimes you can't do anything about people being dumb as rocks. Glad you have kept a mature head during all of this, and sorry that it is happening.
Homedragon
Jeez, some people can't help but show that they are the worst humanity has to offer. Glad your back though and that this is (hopefully) behind you and that the individuals responsible have their computers suffer spontaneous combustion (not likely I know, but here's hoping). Though it has been a while, I do recall something about this on FA cropping up a few times, the first shortly after I had joined in October of 2010. Kinda crappy how people utterly blow things out of proportion for personal gain, especially repeated attacks against someone who has been repeatedly found innocent of any wrongdoing by the authorities on the matter.
Mircea Kitsune
After the things I've seen surrounding this incident, I'm legitimately disgusted beyond repair at humanity. This isn't an issue of social media or of the furry fandom: It's an issue of people and how they reason reality and the way they behave, it's the fact that we are living in a world ran by mindless primates. I've become more phobic of people than I've been in years after the shit I've witnessed the past week... including being attacked and blocked myself for daring to defend this person from an apeshit mob that was outright harassing him on Twitter. I want to be very clear: I don't personally know Zaush, we barely exchanged a few sentences after I replied. Anyone who says that I defended him because "I'm mesmerized by his art" or "in hopes of getting cheaper commissions" is even stupider; Yes I admire his art, but I don't worship people in the fandom like they're Jesus frigging Christ because they make cool drawings. I spoke up because I consider this behavior unacceptable: Many of those haters explicitly advocated murder and torture, told me that I'm obligated to turn against anyone caught having a "forbidden sexuality" otherwise I'm defending rape, or sold me delusional logical fallacies on how artwork magically creates real crime because it "normalizes" ideas. I do NOT want to live in your primitive little world thank you! Who in the hell cares what you draw? Who the heck cares what pornography you "possess" on a stupid drive in your room as long as it's not something evil that you took part in? Who cares what sexuality you have in your own privacy? Did you practically and directly and measurably harm anyone or not? If not then the discussion is over for the haters as far as I'm concerned: Stop persecuting people who are trying to mind their lives in peace! This is NOT the medieval age, it's year 2018 out there: Yes some people are attracted to kids which is apparently a pretty widespread thing... yes I get that this drives the world up the walls because I understand it's this super bad thing... no that doesn't mean they are all real child molesters nor does it justify your barbaric behaviors: Stop dragging others into your puddle of mud, not everyone cares about your anger and paranoia. Just felt that I had to get this out once more.
Peable
welcime back Zman
Damie♥
Glad to see you back, thanks for staying with us, eagerly awaiting the next page <3
CH1LL
Hate to see that you are dealing with this shitty situation. You'll come back from it stronger and smarter. Keep your head up man!
Skiffer Blackpaw
So so sorry you are still dealing with this stuff! I can't stand how furries and people on the internet like to believe everything they see or read even when it's none of their business and then go and harass others. You'll always have my support though!
Sapph Wolf
I seriously don't understand people sometimes. Like, when it comes minor claims like "they acted like a total prick." I can understand taking a face value, but "Is in possession of child pornography" or "Committed sexual assault" those are serious accusations that should be looked into before coming to any conclusions. Seriously, it's irritating sometimes. Anyways, sorry you're having to put up with all this shit... Again... I for one ain't goin nowhere.
Joseph
I'm glad I stay of Twitter and other social networking platforms. Good as they may be for connecting with important people in your life more often than not they are used as a magnifying glass to hold over small issues. People quickly start witch hunts after hearing one side of the story which is usually the most misinformed version. Your old buddy sounds like he's doing the waltz with Blackmail as well which normally ends in someone's toes being stood on. Nevertheless I hope things clear up for you, Adam and I'm looking forward to things going back to normal once the dust settles.
Andre
Nice to see nothing too bad come of this in the end ;w;
