#I've set a goal for myself to post at least one per week in 2025. new year's resolutions and all that

[avissapiens]

Himbull Summer 2024

(Long post ahead but worth the read)

I was intending to do something like this again this year but a previous ask really started the gears turning into motion. I really consider last year’s Jockbull summer experiment to be one of the most impactful changes I've made in a lot of ways. I’m still feeling some of the impacts and changes in my life on a permanent basis. I’ve got new friends I made through the process, new appreciation of style and whole new skillsets that I wouldn't have developed otherwise. Which is why I'm super excited to do this again but with a few adjustments to refine the concept and hopefully reap even deeper rewards for my own growth. I will be running this from Nov 15th 2024 - Feb 15th 2025.

I’ll explain some of the adjustments very briefly before I explain the plan and how you all will be able to interact with it.

We’ve cut down from 15 tasks over 3 plans to just 8 over 2. 

This year by popular demand the archetype’s I’ll work on growing and encapsulating will be Himbo and Bull. This was voted on by the lovely paid Patreon supporters. With the final votes looking like this

I will only be doing 1 plan with a partner this year. That partner is Abgsado as we did last year and you all can keep track of his progress on discord in his own dedicated channel.

The plans

As I noted above this year rather than 3 plans of 5 tasks we only have 2 plans of 4.  15 tasks was way too much as evidenced by the fact that I would regularly only get a fraction done.

PLAN A

This is the more Bull-centric side of the Himbull summer, focused not just on taking the most of this current bulking period, but also on expanding and centering my mind to possibilities for growth. This is the plan Abg and I developed together using a structure of 1 personal task, 1 task granted by the other, 1 task we compete at, and 1 task where we took some inspiration from the discord community.

Task 1 is my personal task and will involve a stronger supplementation regime with the goal of increasing anabolism, libido, strength and focus over the coming months. What that entails on a practical basis is cycling 2 new supplements into my routine every month. Recording notable changes or improvements from baseline. And keeping consistent dosing schedules.

Task 2�� was granted by Abg and focuses on playing around with atypical perspectives and archetypes for growth and change outside of my usual 5/6. I intend to do that by creating some more improvisational mini trances exploring some new growth/corruption-adjacent ideals. These will also be on a biweekly schedule and depending on how I feel released at different levels of exclusivity.

Task 3 is the competitive task for both Abg and I. We both want to expand our fitness socials on sites like Instagram and shift ourselves more into the muscle lifestyle sphere of influence.

Task 4 is the task synthesized from suggestions from discord. We’re gonna fuse the Himbo and Bull gym loops together and dedicate ourselves to listening to it on 2 training days per week. Let ourselves really get mindfucked by the muscle chaos.

PLAN B

 This is the more himbo coded plan. No specific structure however for this set 1 is a personal task and 3 were given by some of my top-tier himbo advisors. So big thanks to them, including @thejockout. Task 1 is the personal task. Similar to last year’s task regarding disposing of certain clothes, this year is going to be about purchasing things that I think are gonna draw more attention my way. I’m gonna aim for a new Himbo Aesthetic component every 2 weeks. And I’m going to force myself to wear each component at least twice in public, not just at the gym.

Task 2 is about making semi-permanent changes to my look in some form or fashion, beyond just clothes. These are gonna be fairly big so i think i might do them on a Monthly or maybe tri-weekly basis so i get 3-4 Big changes out of the process. Bit scared for this one.

Task 3 is gonna be interesting. It’s about putting myself forward to be used as a muscular physical being more often. Lifting, pushing, carrying. Doing the physical aspects of work. Very golden retriever farm boy himbo. “I can get that for you, ma’am. Not a problem”. Part of this summer I’ll be doing an internship at a lab. So in addition to being an academic weapon I’ve also gotta make sure this muscle is both functional and for show.

Task 4 focuses on being a bit more of a slut when I'm in public or around my friends. Putting a bit more sauce on my normal speaking voice, being a tiny bit more touchy feely with people who I know it's safe and kosher to do so with, flirting a bit more liberally.

Engagement

Like last year, I want you all to watch me and interact with this journey. But we’re changing it up a little this year. You’ll be able to get 4 different sources for this journey, all of varying intensity and completeness.

The standard base will be a monthly update released on tumblr synthesizing the whole month of activity with some notable events and reflections on them. These will be free and also probably either cross-posted or linked on Patreon. The next level will be more granular fortnightly updates available to all paid patrons, these will include some sticking points, things I’m struggling with. And I might even ask for suggestions for how to tackle tasks I have problems with. I will also like last year be doing fortnightly voice diaries which will likely be similar to the two above but maybe with some extra impromptu thoughts thrown in, again at the paid patreon tier.

And finally, in twitter’s dying gasp(not even gonna link it but you know how to find me) and a begrudging attempt to strike while the iron is hot on bluesky, I’ll also be doing a lot more frequent if less thought through crossposts on those two sites.

If you by any chance want to help me in any of these tasks and have a personal hand in molding me as I’ve molded you then I can provide two options for support. 1st, as always, consider subscribing to my Patreon at any paid tier, but the $5 level is imo the best value for money. 2nd, I have opened up a Throne account(wishtender 2.0) with specific wishlist items geared toward different HBS tasks(namely A1, A 3, and B1). It’d be really hot for everyone to have some of those get ticked off during the summer. And folks who help out in this way will get a shout out in the relevant update.

I really hope this is an amazingly fun experience for you all and an absolutely transformative one for me. At the end of this I’ll be going into my final Bachelor’s year in this country. I want to be the hottest, buffest, and best I've ever been for these super low stakes classes. Let's make it happen folks!

  (Models for this Himbull Summer are Kieran Yawson and Trkennet)

[melaschnie]

reading goals habits for 2025

this is along the same lines as @the---hermit 's post about not setting reading goals for the next year. because my life has gotten so much busier since starting my new job, i simply do not have the time anymore to regularly read a book per week. at least not if i also want to have a social life and get some rest.

so, in 2025 i will not set myself a number of books i want to read. instead what i do want to do is establishing some new habits related to books and reading and keeping in mind things i've already established this year.

not borrowing more than two books at a time from the library. i know, sometimes it can be hard especially when several holds become available at the same time. and up until this summer that was never a problem for me. but now i want to make sure i don't put more pressure on myself by having several books sitting there with a countdown, i'd rather push the hold back another week or two and actually take the time i want to with the book.

brought on by a recent storygraph update: don't try to power through the rest of a book just to make it in time for a loan to expire. there is a pause feature now, it will not mess with the stats, and the next time the loan will be available i can take my time with it again.

similarly, i want to keep up what i've already done quite well this year. if i don't vibe with a book, i dnf it. nobody cares. i don't have to spend time on it that could be spend on more enjoyable books, no matter how many other people loved the book or how interesting it initially sounded.

according to storygraph, which should be up to date, i currently own 55 books that i haven't read yet. i would very much love it, if that number either stayed the same or went down by the end of the year. but since i can't account for books that future-me will inevitably buy, i'd at least like to see if i'm in the mood for one of those books before browsing my libby tags for something that's currently available just to end up with several new holds.

lastly, i have a maybe. something that i want to try out, see if it works for me right now. i never was someone who wrote reviews for books but i've been getting into the habit of answering the review questions on storygraph including trigger warnings and themes, and i thought why not try and put my thoughts into a somewhat coherent form as well? written reviews are something i often consult when looking at a book, so maybe something i write will be helpful for someone else, who knows! maybe this will even help me remember books better - we all know that my brain is a sieve, so perhaps taking a few minutes to sort through my thoughts will help with that lmao.

that's it, that's the plan. the post already looks a lot longer than i expected it to be, sorry about that, but we're talking books/reading here so i could happily go on a few more tangents!

what, you thought i was actually done? um, so... usually, i'd be doing a 25 for 2025 post but that is such a big number so i couldn't stop myself from doing seven books i'd like to prioritise in 2025 instead (my favourite number :) ):

ace by a. chen

fire becomes her by r. thor

common bonds* by c.t. callahan, b.r. sanders, r. sylver, and c. arseneault

shit cassandra saw by g.e. kirby

the book thief by m. zusak

grimms märchen by the brothers grimm

a speculative fiction book (perhapss an anthology) that i haven't decided on yet

if you made it all the way down here, wow, impressive, thank you for listening to me essentially talking to myself. happy reading! <3

[pipermca]

Writing Year in Review - 2024

Goodbye 2024, hello 2025. It's sort of hurting my brain to think that we're a quarter of the way through the 21st century now, so... Let's not dwell on that.

We did some travel this year. In April we flew to my hometown to watch the total solar eclipse, since my parents' house was directly in the path of totality. The weather cooperated (clear skies? in Ohio? in April?), so we got a great view. That was such a mind-blowing experience, one that I would completely recommend for anyone who has a chance to see a total eclipse. (I'd seen partial eclipses before, but this was the first total eclipse I'd experienced.)

Then in early December we flew to British Columbia to visit Spouse's family, which was nice. It was so much warmer there than here. Maybe we need to visit there in the winter more often. 😄

Things have been changing at work, resulting in some difficult stress that I've been trying to manage. I'm pretty good at setting down work stuff at the end of the day and not continuing to work on stuff after quitting time (unlike some of my peers) but I do take the stress home with me. I haven't quite figured out how to deal with that, and I need to.

And finally, I hit a major milestone birthday, one that officially places me in the "Old" category. I'm fine with it, but there are some health issues that continue to dog me. I wonder how much of those issues were exacerbated by my Covid infection in 2023, so we've been continuing to be cautious.

Like last year, my focus is going to be on being kind to myself: taking care of the meat machine that I'm piloting, and not stressing myself with anything I don't need to. That includes my writing.

In December, I wrote 6,431 words, almost evenly split between my Christmas story All I Want for Christmas, and The Prime and His Protector. I'm so close to being done with Prime and Protector that I can practically taste it. I think it'll be good having that off my plate.

In 2024, I wrote a total of 78,703 words, more than I did in 2023. Most of it was for The Prime and His Protector, with A Matter of Propriety a close second. (Even though I started posting Matter of Propriety in 2023, I finished writing it in 2024. My word count posted to AO3 was 117, 134 words, for the same reason.)

I started logging official word count goals each month, and I made my goal most months! Granted, I was very conservative in my goal-setting, but that's ok. (See above, being kind to myself.)

For my word count per week, you can see it's all over the place. There are a few peaks, but I can't tell you what those may have been related to. (The big trough in July was probably due to how hot it was; my brain doesn't work when it's hot out.)

Comparing my average words per hour by month to previous years' graphs, when I do sit down to write, my output is pretty consistent, between 500-750 wph.

As for goals, for 2024 I set some very doable goals, and I didn't do horrible!

Write two comic scripts for practice I wrote one, so 50%!

Finish reposting taken-down fics I finished one compilation but have a handful left from the other one. Call this 80% done.

Write and post three one-shots Yes! Done! (I actually wrote SEVEN!)

Start posting Prime and Protector Yes! Done!

In that same light (keeping a doable list of goals), here are my goals for 2025:

Finish reposting taken-down fics

Finish writing and posting Prime and Protector

Write and post three one-shots

Start posting one of my longfic WIPs

My rationale for these is: I am SO close to being done with both Prime and Protector, and reposting the taken-down fics, that those should both be gimmies (I hope). I do like cranking out one-shots as a way to get things out of my brain (like I did this year with the Dune/TF crossover thing I'd been mulling for years). And I want to get moving on at least one of those pending longfics. I have a few sitting around that are several years old that I'd like to get out of my WIP folder. We'll see how I do next January. ✨

Behind the cut is the first sentence of each of the stories I posted (sans the reposted fics, since those were all backdated to their original posting dates), and the month it was posted in. I also tossed in my AO3 Wrapped.

I wish everyone a happy and safe 2025!

January. A Matter of Propriety (from chapter 5, which was the first chapter posted in 2024). Orion had heard of people having processor lockups when they didn't get enough recharge to process all the information in their memory, or if they were experiencing some sort of glitch.

March. The Spark and the Lightning. The Autobots drove in silence until the talus dunes grew too loose for them to navigate, and their tires could find no traction in the castoffs of the topsiders.

April. Another Day in Paradise. "Is everybody excited for another day in paradise?"

April. Diplomatic Relations. It was always the same.

June. A Different Me (comic script, so this is the first line of dialogue). "Prowl was right. Everything is just like I left it."

July. Sightlines. Five hours into his first mission with Corporal Bluestreak of Praxus, Hound figured out what the other mechs in his new unit had meant when they wished him luck.

August. The Prime and His Protector (first chapter was posted in August). "Keep moving!" Jazz called out over comms as he drove to the top of the ridge.

October. Feral Code. For as much as Tagan Heights had once been a center of industrial might and scientific excellence, the wilderness just outside the city's limits was as wild as it came.

November. To Service a Prime. "Per Sentinel Prime's orders, the entire service depot is at your disposal," the attendant said, walking the diminutive miners through the rooms.

November. Translation Error. "I can't believe Raf got detention," Miko said.

November. Don't Move. "Don't move," Nautica murmured, stepping back to admire her work.

December. All I Want for Christmas. Hound swirled the liquid around in his glass and hoped it wasn't too obvious that he was staring.

And here is my AO3 wrapped! (Here is the source for the graphic!)

[pagesandpothos]

2025 Reading Goals

I had a great reading year in 2024. I found several new all-time favorite books and explored new genres and authors. I also successfully read at least one page every day of the year. I'd love to continue this excitement about reading into 2025. To help, I've set a few goals for me to keep in mind for the next 12 months.

Here are my reading goals for 2025:

Read at least one page every day.

With Netgalley, I always want to keep my feedback ratio at (or above) 80%. I fell behind with my ARC reviews in the last few months of 2024, so I also want to do a better job at making sure my reviews are out before the release date. Ideally, I'd like to always post my reviews at least 1 week before the book is released.

Read more of my Book of the Month & Aardvark Book Club books. This was a goal of mine last year and it was the goal I did the worst at. This year, my main goal is to be more thoughtful about what books I'm picking and how many books I get from both services. Ideally, I'd also love to read at least one book from each book box per month.

Speaking of Book of the Month, their yearly challenge was really fun for me in 2024. I want to participate again and try to win both prizes.

Continue (or finish) as many of the series I'm reading as possible. Series that I'd like to finish or get caught up on include: The Raven Cycle, Wayward Children, and The Last Binding.

I have an entire stack of books that I know I will love when I finally get around to reading them but I keep saving them for later for some reason. I want to tackle as many of those books as possible this year. Some of these include: Black Sun, Six of Crows, The Martian, A River Enchanted, and The Lost Apothecary but there are many more!

One of my goals last year was to read more T. Kingfisher. I had a blast reading so many of her books last year, so I want to continue making my way through her backlist. Last year, I focused on her horror releases. This year, I'd love to finally start her fantasy romance series, The World of the White Rat. This series includes one duology, a standalone, and a four-book series. My goal is to read at least the first 3 books in this verse.

Finally, I want to continue to read what I enjoy most but I also want to challenge myself sometimes. I don't want to be afraid to tackle longer books, harder novels, and books outside of my typical genres.