For the past two years, I’ve struggled immensely with keeping this site afloat. This has largely resulted from repeated cyber stalking and attacks against my character from malicious actors. Because of this, there was a large emphasis on articles discussing these people, as well as their criminal history. This has prevented me from producing regular content at a consistent rate, because these articles require a high level of time and effort, and are emotionally draining. I can safely say that I’m past most of that, and that regular content should resume. In fact, the last few months should demonstrate that.

Unfortunately, there’s still the issue of finances. Two years ago, someone who has gone by either Davi or Ivad, depending on the account, launched a campaign to mass report my Patreon in retaliation to me calling out the pedophilic apologia of his friend CEO of Fate. In spite of Davi being an unrepentant pedophile who has bragged about molesting his underage sister, Patreon sided with him and suspended my account, and I lost most of my patrons. I have been unable to recover since then.

Part of the reason for this is because the platform I choose as a replacement, SubscribeStar, may just be the scummiest platform I’ve ever used. Unlike a platform like Patreon, you need to get approved by SubscribeStar in order to receive payments. The amount of time it takes varies, but I’ve heard of some people going years without being approved. If you look at the Subreddit for SubscribeStar, you will see dozens of people with the same complaint about how it’s impossible to get approved.

Despite this, I did manage to get approved for a period of time… and then they removed that approval. As if that wasn’t bad enough, they don’t let you withdraw your money unless you have at least five patrons, the amount is over $300. I only recently broke the money threshold, but not the patron one, so I can’t withdraw any money. I would be able to just ask a few of my followers to contribute 1 dollar, withdraw the money, and then remove their pledge, but because my account has been placed back under review, I can’t do that. In other words, SubscribeStar has stolen over $300 from me and my supporters.

With regards to having approval removed, it’s apparently not common. From what I’ve researched, it’s likely that someone reported my account, like what happened with Patreon. I can only guess what happened since I received no email about this, and only found out because a mutual told me they’re unable to see my SubscribeStar page.

In other words, SubscribeStar is now operating under the direction of “if someone out there has a grudge against you, you’re fucked!” You would think that a site that is literally built for taboo, adult content that Patreon tends to ban would know otherwise, but nope! I should also note, I’ve been transparent about every accusation levied against me, and I’ve provided evidence to the contrary each time. The only things they CAN provide evidence of, is going against the status quo and challenging public opinion, which I’ll gladly do again and again.

What this means is that either SubscribeStar’s customer support team is a skeleton crew that can’t invest the time to actually investigate anything, or that they are no better than Patreon when it comes to arbitrarily banning taboo content. As an aside, I don’t even create NSFW content, I occasionally review 18+ games and censor any imagery as such, so it’s especially moronic that my content was targeted. In actuality, SubscribeStar may be even worse than Patreon, because Patreon at least notified me to tell me there was an issue, SubscribeStar just took my money and gave me the runaround.

Well, it looks like there’s only one option, bitch about it online and hope it gets big enough for them to notice. SubscribeStar gets away with this because it covers such a niche space in content creation, and the lack of other options. As this is being written, you’ve probably heard about Itch.io and Steam delisting and suspending 18+ games as a result of lobbying from far right groups. I feel now is the best opportunity to warn you that SubscribeStar is not your friend, and will fuck you over.

Just to put things in perspective, I’ve often heard that, in order to get approved, you need to already have some sort of following. IE, you need to BE someone noteworthy within this space. The fact that I’ve gotten approved means they saw me as someone, and they still treated me this way. In that case, how do you think they regard people less popular or influential than I am?

So one may be asking, is there any alternative to SubscribeStar? Yes, there is actually, it’s called Fanbox. I just created an account there yesterday, and it doesn’t have any of the stupid, restrictive bullshit that SubscribeStar has. You can pledge to mine here.

Unfortunately, this only solves MY problem. The issue is that Fanbox is still subject to the same restrictions placed by Credit Card companies like Mastercard and Visa, that is also applying to Itch.io and Steam, so it’s not free game for Taboo content. In my case, I’m writing reviews of them, not actually producing said content. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you about people mass calling payment processors to get them to stop their anti-fiction crusade, but I figured now was the time to bring up SubscribeStar in particular, because of its predator approach.

Anyway, I’ve also decided that, as a means of regaining my old Patrons, I will now be writing Fanbox exclusive content, and most of them will be of NSFW games, because I know how much my viewership loves those. My first Fanbox exclusive review will be of this gem.

I should note that I’m also voiding my previous rewards system since I’ve been terrible at covering patron requests in a timely manner (though I will fulfill existing requests). It goes without saying, any support will be immensely appreciated.

Update: After filing a report with the Better Business Bureau, SubscribeStar immediately re-approved my account and I’ve been able to withdraw the money from my account. I must also note that the requirement that you need five patrons or that the amount needed to exceed $300 was incorrect. I cannot recall where I heard this rule, and I’m unaware if this was a previous policy that was abandoned, or if I simply misread something. Either way, I apologize for the misinformation.

As for my current stance on SubscribeStar, I am still concerned with the direction of this site, considering they have treated the developer of Degrees of Lewdity very similarly to myself, and there’s still the recurring issue of new creators being unable to get approved. Additionally, the fact that SubscribeStar only acted when it was clear that doing otherwise would negatively effect their company’s image makes me skeptical. It is my hope that SubscribeStar takes all of this into account to improve their service. For now, I will continue to use Fanbox as my primary payment platform platform, though rewards will still be the same for anyone who pledges to SubscribeStar at the same rate.

Also, one last thing, Emma Bradley can eat shit!

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