#and also the trend was months ago and i forgot to do it

[gomzdrawfr]

ok so I was doing fruit tier list after watching RTgames' video and decided to do cod ship tier list (something that was trending on the bird app before)

LINK HERE

Im tagging a few peeps to do it if you wanna!! if not its fine hehe

@justasmolbard @warenai @tapioca-milktea1978 @kaar-ne @tiggerriot @jgvfhl

reminder to all this is all for fun and people can have different opinions, don't be a prick :p

[riddles-n-games]

So I've finally read through the excerpt of the six chapters of That Night in Prague. I love the character art at the start and good on to whoever guessed Pain at the Right Gun is an anagram. Now, my initial thoughts are that the set up is a great start to this scavenger hunt around Prague and Jameson and Avery are being the competitive couple they always are. However, that being said, the romance is faltering. Yes, there is clearly a show of hidden romantic Jamie and helpless romantic Avery from before but I think JLB has forgotten how to write romance between them.

She is definitely changing certain things and I wonder if that is because she herself or her publishing house is pushing her to cater to booktok trends or something even though her og trilogy already is a household name in YA mystery. As I said earlier, the romance isn't romancing. I know Avery and Jameson are two years now into their relationship but Avery sounds not quite herself. She sounds like Jameson did in TBH but also more different at the same time. I feel like JLB forgot how she wrote her own character in TFG just two years earlier and it doesn't coincide with this one now. She is still 18 here and Jameson 19. I understand the physical aspects of their relationship regarding touch and kissing but this is where the disconnect happens for me regarding how she wrote them just two years ago versus now.

The innuendos are frankly getting annoying in my opinion and it feels so forced. Like, sorry, it translates awkwardly after the way the first books were written and if JLB really wanted to experiment with this, it could have been in another series or book. Not changing the style after being already six books into this world which also makes me wonder why she's now throwing this into so many POVs, it makes it hard to distinguish the character voice. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a level of maturity but frankly, given the timeline, this sounds like a much older Avery, not the same 18 year old we are going back to.

When I remember what we were told regarding this book, "There is nothing frivolous about the way a Hawthorne man loves." I immediately thought of the loyal, vulnerable Jameson that came with his heart on his sleeve in THL, giving Avery the chance to choose who she wants to be with. I remember the way in her vulnerable moment when she wanted to be left alone after the discovery of her mother's postcards having hidden letters, he was the first to push aside the need for new answers. I'm not saying there weren't some moments like these already present but that's what I want to see.

I want flirty Jameson and Avery but I do not care for what I see currently. There doesn't seem like a proper bridge to that gap in their relationship which is saying something because the transition between THL and TFG regarding their romance was better than a gap that was smaller than that from TFG to now, just some months prior to the events of TBH. Call me a Debbie Downer, but since TBH, I've seen my expectations for proper integration of something new while respecting the old not being met as I thought.

Of course, as always, this is simply my opinion and if you agree, great. If you don't, well that's fine, too.

[suwbuns]

E-DATERS! | #1 men hater

SYPNOSIS. moving back to korea from america, y/n is excited to reunite with her old friends and make new ones. what she doesnt expect is to find herself reuniting with her “ex-boyfriend” from 10 years ago who she dated over minecraft. what makes things worse? he happens to be her favorite streamer who she has been pinning after for years.

written chapter + screenshots below! (not proof read)

beomgyu had never felt this fearful in his life.

of course, he had his honorable mentions. such as when he accidentally sent a kid to the nurses office for pushing him off the swingset in the fourth grade, resulting in his mom taking away his computer for two weeks.

there had also been the time when he overslept and ended up missing his csat, fearing he wouldnt be able get into college. not that it mattered anyways considering he dropped out 3 months into his classes.

and most recently, when he had accidentally made fun of a streamer with almost 4 times the following he had, causing a terrible fan war over twitter with the hashtag #CANCELBEOMGYU trending for an entire week.

but yet none of them, could ever compare to the amount of fear that he had felt at this very moment.

because absolutely nothing could be worse than a plummeting ego and pure embarrassment to be the consequences of his actions, in which you managed to figure him out with not even a week that has passed.

as his body turned cold and his hands clammy at your follow up question, beomgyu mustered all the strength that he had in order to press the mute button on his keyboard, before letting out an ear piercing scream.

“how are we going to fix this?!” he cried out, burrowing his face in his hands.

“dont worry, this is fixable!” heeseung nervously laughed. “i can just make up some lame excuse and—“

“why did you mute?” your voice had interrupted, heeseung giving beomgyu an unsure glance before pressing the unmute button.

"sorry, my dog started to bark really loudly," heeseung replied, giving beomgyu the side eye. "miss me?"

beomgyu's mouth pressed into a thin line as he stared blankly at heeseung who held in his laughter at your stuttering protests.

"your solution is flirting with her?" beomgyu mouthed questionably, his lips molding into a grimace.

“just trust me” heeseung mouthed back, returning his attention back to you to attempt to get your mind off of the previous slip up.

however, beomgyu in fact did not trust him nor had any reason to considering it was him who had gotten in this situation. yet, he leaned against the backrest of his chair nervously knowing that there was nothing he could do. his mouth went dry as he sat thinking about every single possible scenario that could come out of this, hardly any of them with a good ending.

“i need to go to the restroom, ill be back!” you said, allowing beomgyu to sigh in relief. “but dont think that i forgot about how you knew about beomgyu.” following your sentence, the mute icon appeared next to your username, causing beomgyu to leap up in his chair to mute his mic as well.

“okay new plan, how about we gaslight her? we can say that she told me but she just forgot?” beomgyu brought up excitedly.

“do you remember what last happened when you gaslighted a girl? you almost got cancelled—“

“okay nevermind!” beomgyu grumbled, folding his arms over his chest. “or how about we just say its a lucky guess? i mean i do have a pretty large following, it wouldnt be that hard to guess that!”

“beomgyu you cant expect her to believe that. your ideas are almost as stupid as the one that we are currently in!” heeseung replied in annoyance, turning his suggestion down almost instantly.

“fine!” beomgyu threw his hands in the air, running his fingers through the strands of his hair in frustration. “why dont we just admit that i am beomgyu, we reveal this whole entire plan, and—“

“you can not be backing out now!”

“well what else can i do?!”

“i dont know, something! youre thought she was easy to get with because shes obsessed with you!”

beomgyu paused for a second, an idea lighting up in his head as he heard the latter of heeseungs sentence. his fingers were working faster than his brain, as it automatically reached for his phone to press on the twitter application to search for your private account.

“you didn't tell me she was that obsessed,” heeseung said, peeking over beomgyus shoulder to take a quick glance at his phone, catching sight of the manifestations of 'marrying beomgyu' on your bio and your header. “you sure this isnt a fan account?”

“no, its definitely her.” beomgyu said, shoving his phone back into his pocket. “new plan. we tell her we stalked her account!”

“can you imagine how humiliated she's going to feel?” heeseung replied, his mouth twisting into a frown. "i want to get out of this situation as much as you do, but the last thing i want to do is make her feel like crap for being a fan."

“oh please, it cant be that deep," beomgyu emphasized. "her being exposed would just leave her with embarrassment for at most, a week. but if I'm exposed? i cant let myself suffer like that!"

“man i really do hope that yeonjun kicks your—“

“im back!” you announced, causing heeseung and beomgyu to jump in their seats at the abrupt noise.

“oh hi!” heeseung beamed after unmuting himself, giving beomgyu one final glance before resuming. “also, i know this might be embarrassing, but I found out about beomgyu through your private twitter.”

“what was that?!” beomgyu whispered-yelled, his eyes wide in judgment. “you could have given her a chance to breathe instead of violating her right when she got back!”

"i was just following what you told me to say!" heeseung replied defensively.

"yeah, but not like that!"

as beomgyu and heeseung continued to argue amongst themselves, what they failed to catch was the sound of you leaving the call, snapping the both of them out of their heated conversation.

the two simultaneously glanced at both monitors, eyeing the leave message from the game, as well as the fact that you were no longer present in the call.

“did she just leave?”

previous | masterlist | next

TAGLIST. @openingssequence @suburbiataehyung @shinypieceofgarbage @koeuh @captivq @beowmgyu @qluvrv @ikaeryn @whippedforbeomgyu @i8lhee @heyanonymous123 @vanicogh @sulliefimmie @tae-ology @milkycloudtyg @ox1-lovesick @soobsfairy444 @sulliefimmie @jaxavance @peachenle @pokyloky @peachybeom @alpha-mommy69 @fatoompie @ashxxgyu @soobsdior @viagumi @rikismiel @luvsoobs @lovejunz @wccycc @enha-cafe @kaeslily @hiddenboopy @cashew00nut @merendis @reverbtunes @lcvesickgyuzz @dear-dreamie @fragmentationss @chuuinggummy @hafsa-hoofsa-heefs @beomsbeanie @shigamiryuk @soobliss @woncheecks @sserafimez @ahnneyong @ghostfacefricker6969 @flrtsbin @beomomb @cathaerin (closed)

A/N. kind of a mid chapter but anyways beomgyu is a red flag smh

AND SORRY IF THERES SM WRITTEN CHAPTERS IM TRYING TO INCORPORATE MORE SOCIAL MEDIA 😭

[eng-yla]

Forgot of this acc again...

Posting in this acc again...

Here you have an introduction to my Sdra2 Sephogorgopathia AU

For extra clarification: In this AU, the events of Danganronpa Another do happen but most of the events of the canon Danganronpa don't *exactly* happen the same as canon. An example of this is Sayaka surviving the killing game. This has no actual relevance to the plot, it was just a decision I took because I needed a way to remind the audience that technically both games are in the same universe + this isn't my first time with an idea about a zombie apocalypse in the danganronpa universe (if you followed me on the danganronpa amino around 2021, you know what I'm talking about) and I need her alive in case I wanna continue that idea but with this virus... maybe in a future irrelevant spinoff.

Nikei wrote the first three newspapers but he got fired before the fourth was written.

I also have the full version for each drawing!

I know this infection trend died months ago but I'm still gonna do it for fun!

[kittycatherder]

Ruminations about femboys (not in a fun way though) cw for slurs/words with a lot of baggage to them

I'm reminded of a conversation earlier where I brought up how I saw the main character from Lies of P (the P-man himself) and like immediately saw people making pinup art of him calling him a femboy and like how funny I found that.

To say more about it like P-man (I have yet to play the game so I'll just keep calling him that) is very pretty and dare I say a classic example of a pretty boy/bishounen but he doesn't even dress effeminately and just looks pretty victorian era combat twink with how he fights.

Like for a while I struggled to like think about why this bugged me like at all. Like I'm so down for people to sexual characters and have fun with it but I think it's partially that people like feel like they*have* to force characters they like into predetermined little boxes to really enjoy them instead of like just appreciating a twink and it doesn't help that the art I saw also gave P-man like "has been on hrt for half a year/a few months breast growth"

Like to clarify; I'm also down for any and everyone who wants to get into hrt to do so. Shit; that should be avaible over the counter for fucking free to whoever wants it and knows what all it can do. However people being horny about like femboys with either low dosage/ early in transition doesn't exist in a vacuum and I feel like it's something a lot of people either forgot or honestly maybe never heard about in the first place so let's get into it.

from what I've seen most people who call themselves femboys/into femboys are cool and I'm glad it can help them on their gender journey... However! Ever notice how like Bridget keeps trending on twitter every once in a while despite being canonically a trans girl like years ago??? There's a good reason that. Like femboys as a concept unfortunately came forth from Trap porn/models especially on 4chan.

Making a new paragraph because oh boy this is some mental gymastics: Back in the day (and still now unfortunately) there were cishet guys who had the hots for some trans women (even if it's a fictional and exaggerated representations of them like futanari smut and the such). That said they believed that it's gay to be attracted to trans women and instead of fighting against that learned and deeply ingrained shame and guilt they double downed on it without truly giving up their attraction in the funkiest way possible. You see, dear reader, imagine you were some 4channer cishet guy some like 10 or maybe even 20 or so years ago (I forgot when trap porn got really popular on 4chan but somewhere between those years sound right). You think that a pretty women with a penis could be really hot but that's gay (negative) right? BUT!! What if there was a boy that was just So incredibly pretty and feminine that he even looks like a [cis] girl that if he revealed that he was a guy that you'd be so caught up in the moment that it's somehow less gay to be into him and bone him then just any trans women!! This is like one of the core fantasies of trap porn and I would now since I was lurking on 4chan as a teen and saw quite a large bit of it!!!

Especially sharp readers may have also noticed that this is basically a sexualized version of the trans/gay panic defense except of murdering some poor trans woman after learning she was trans you just have to fuck her though. I'm not gonna go into the whole history of like the trans/gay panic defense but the wiki article is a good enough starting off point and like content warnings for transphobic and homophobic murders like jesus fucking christ. It's awful which leads to how trap porn/trap kink/whatever changed it's name to femboy almost universally after a point.

There was mountains of pushback especially from various people but (not surprisingly) from my perspective a lot of transfems had issues with "Traps" for several reasons including the whole "this is just the trans panic but horny" and still fetishing trans women but in a weirdly indirect way. Like even back in the day of the like early 2010s I saw trap art/comics/doujins/etc that had "traps" have kinda wide hips, some small but almost budding breasts (like they've been on estrogen for months) and really thick thighs and fat asses (like they have had the fat redistribution of mtf hrt).

To go on a tangent for a sec; I bet there are people into femboys from back then who realized they might be bi or gay but there's a large number of them who are still straight and it'd be the easy route to just joke that they haven't realized they are bi yet but! A large part of current principles and understanding of gender and sexuality is self determined. That also includes cis and/or het people. Why would mostly cishet men who were into traps/femboys be so obsessed with them and still call themselves straight then???

It wasn't hard to see that a number of these guys into traps were looking at porn that both depicted idealized transfem bodies that combined both masculine and feminine traits in ways they found attractive but in a way to never acknowledge that trans people but especially trans women exist in the real world. Like back in the day you'd never see any trap art or trap models on 4chan or other sites that would dare utter the words hrt and that feels absolutely on purpose.

.... OH YEAH speaking of hrt! It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone but yeah there are absolutely people who enjoyed trap art and/or who were models who later on realized they were transfem in some way. For everything that sucks with it's inception it was probably the first exposure that some people had to crossdressing/experimenting with their gender or that like a Boy(tm) could ever dress or act in feminine manner. Like now that people stopped calling it trap porn and moved away from a lot of the main fantasy scenarios of it's inception it's easy to see why femboy art/models have been influential to some people and realize that they can either just be a girl, or be a boy in a girly way, or something inbetween in a myriad of ways! Like as someone who almost never saw trans people in media until I found porn I totally get it. What kick starts the first serious questions about one's own gender and/or sexuality is different for everyone and I have no ill will or anything for that.

However, the fact that femboys as a trend (especially in the west) really kicked off on 4chan has left it's mark in a various ways and in addition to this the fact that it's historical ties to all that mess often feels completely ignored and/or forgotten can really get to me at times. It feels that a lot of people who got into femboy stuff nowadays may honestly not even know about some of this due to just not being online on 4chan and other such spaces when anything we now call femboy was very much considered in the niche of trap porn (more or less). There's more and more people who can look at femboy not just as a porn niche but as a gender/a gender goal they wish to emulate and gives them gender euphoria even if they are very much still a cis (or maybe cis++/cis# depending on your programming preference) guy but wants to be on estrogen for a while and be called a good girl and get headpats. Again, I bring of Bridget guilty gear because why are there so many people mad about her being canonical trans and still mad and denying it? Like I once saw someone on twitter and checked out their profile and saw that they are a self identified femboy and while scrolling down saw that they were big mad and denying the translation of the article where daisuke says that bridget is trans! I was pretty surprised for a while even after muting and blocking their account (lol). While thinking about that transphobic femboy it dawned on me that "oh yeah, there were quite a number of trap/femboy fans who were weirdo 4channers" and even if they are now are a femboy they were a bigoted channer first. I'm starting to ramble now but to speed things and wrap this up; I think seeing femboy art of P-man so soon after the game launched where instead of just putting that twink in lingerie and a sexy pose the artist also gave P-man some budding breasts (and removed the cool looking robo-arm which is just wack but more purely a matter of personal taste) just sorta reminded me of that past and I forgot about that feeling till today.

Like again I don't hate on femboys or nothing but I wish it's weird history was remembered more and that when I do come across I hope they can get excited for a twink without giving the boy estrogen for a couple months. Ya'll gotta learn to appreciate twinks without small estrogen tiddies at some point or are the beauty standards for femboys that strict :P

oh and Post Script: Like for femboys having fun posting photos online I never have a problem with them unless they do invoke that old trap porn bs and/or they are bigoted 4channers or redditors or whatever. It's only some art that rarely can rub me the wrong way

[mikodrawnnarratives]

Going through and organizing my files since I've decided to order them by year and month now instead of fandom, which I wish I was doing before

And I realized I forgot I was going to post these but l i f e got in the way and I forgot

So older, messy sketches + messy writing but it's pnf crossover hehehe

List of reasons why pnf crossover is genius in no particular order

1 Phineas and Ferb have a lot in common with Glamrock freddy when you think about it. Not even just the ones that I wrote down a month ago. Phineas and Freddy (and ferb but he's not shown) would most definitely get along

Also, Gregory and Phineas and Ferb are around the same age so (if gregory is 12 then Phineas and Ferb aren't that far behind if aged up a little)

2

3 If the glamrocks were based on the 80's and lived in the same universe as phineas and ferb... they would be fans of Lindana I don't make the rules.

Linda at the Pizza Plex would have a blast with the nostalgia

4

5 I wish I got out a better drawing to demonstrate but I just have a gut feeling that out of everybody in the cast, Isabella would be the one Gregory grows closest with.

At first maybe liked her the most since she's a firescout girl and he has a trend with sticking to who is useful to him. But idk I like the idea that maybe later they get to bond a bit more

What about Phineas and Ferb being his friends? We'll get to why they aren't immediately the best candidates later lolllll

And

The daycare attendant and the gang would be entertaining af together and you know it.

I got a WHOLE lot more reasons but these are the ones that have a drawing to go with them

Oh I also have this that I just remembered

Dorito chip head phineas

OH OH AND

For the sake of this crossover we are going to pretend this isn't true for a little bit

okay? okay good

And the fact that security breach most likely takes place in march

We are scooching it over to the summer and pretend it's like a year or two after pnf ending for crossover purposes

[back-and-totheleft]

"The same old bullshit"

Oliver Stone said Friday he was shocked to hear that the stars of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer had walked out of its London premiere the day before as SAG-AFTRA officially declared strike action.

“I know several producers are opening movies, like Oppenheimer. Chuck Roven, he was in London. I heard it was going to be cancelled,” said Stone, when asked for his view on the strike.

“I don’t know if it went ahead but all the actors left. That was shocking that they really meant business and cut off right away all the promotion, which is big.”

Commenting on the ongoing 11-week WGA strike, Stone suggested the roots of the current industrial action lie in the deal brokered to end the five-month writers strike in 1988.

“There was a basic miscarriage of justice way back when, when Brian Walton was the head of the WGA, when we gave in. I wasn’t on the front line, but I supported that strike,” said Stone.

“We gave in to the producers. They got away with murder on one of these deals where all that DVD money was deferred. They claimed they were in the hole, in the red, and that they had to get their money back from DVD.

“I forgot what the percentage was, but they took something like the first 75% off the top. The DVD business was huge, especially for my films. So, the gross was never divided fairly.”

Stone said this trend had continued with residuals and profits.

“Not so much residuals, as profits really. Residuals are important for some of the writers who don’t make as much money. But people who do make money, they don’t touch the profits from the film, the studio does,” he said.

“The studio is always telling you that they’re losing money, but they always find a way to make a new level of profit for 10, 15 years. … It’s that perpetual industrial problem with a capitalist group that pays its executives more and more money and screws the average writer.”

Looking back over past industrial action, Stone recalled how the 2007 writers strike initially led to the postponement of his 1968 My Lai massacre drama Pinkville, and then resulted in it being cancelled for good.

“We had three weeks to go and it got cancelled. We got hurt,” he said.

Stone said he doubted there would be a quick or easy resolution to the current writer and actor disputes.

“I don’t think it will be wrapped up quickly. Because well, I don’t understand the economics of Netflix and these new guys, but it’s the same old bullshit. You know they’re making money and they always say they’re losing money. It’s the classic conflict that goes back to the 1880s in America.”

Stone was talking to Deadline at the Jerusalem Film Festival, where he showed his 2022 documentary Nuclear Now, arguing the case for nuclear power as the only viable way to tackle climate change.

Based on the book A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow, the work premiered at Venice last year.

The work is a passion project for Stone, who says he was inspired to make the film by his fear of climate change.

“I’m not a science expert and I have no kinship with nuclear power. On the contrary, you could say I was a mild believer in the Jane Fonda-Ralph Nader concept of the 1980s that nuclear power was dangerous,” said the director, who also took co-writing credits with U.S. scientist Joshua Goldstein.

“But it’s clear to me from my travels all over the world, that it’s getting hotter, and hotter, and hotter. We were in Italy, two, three days ago, and they said it was hottest day on record or something.”

Stone was also honored with a lifetime achievement award from the Jerusalem Film Festival at the opening ceremony Thursday evening alongside Helen Mirren and Belgian directorial duo Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne.

The director last spent extensive time in the country in 2002 at the height of Second Intifada to make his documentary Persona Non Grata, in which he interviewed Israeli leaders Benjamin Netanyahu, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon as well as the Palestinian Al Aqsa Brigade on the Middle East conflict.

Two decades on, he suggested the situation is unchanged.

“It’s a repetitive cycle. I’ve been here several times. I planted an olive tree for peace here in the ’90s with my then-partner Arnon Milchan and came back in 2002 for Persona Non Grata. … I don’t see a difference. It’s just worse. Like it’s getting hotter. It’s just getting more and more choked.”

-Melanie Goodfellow, "Oliver Stone Shocked By ‘Oppenheimer’ SAG-AFTRA Strike Cast Walkout; Says Roots Of Writers Strike Lie In 1988 Deal," Deadline, Jul 14 2023

[choices-binglebonkus]

Top Ten Books/Series I forgot existed

So this has been sitting in my drafts for like a month or two and I just got an ask that made me want to actually post it. I think I made this simply because I was bored, couldn’t sleep, and enjoy making lists, so I decided to make a top ten list featuring books/series that I totally forgot about because…they’re just forgettable, no two ways about it. Because let’s be real here: there are great Choices books, there are terrible Choices books, and there are Choices books that are like…hey…hi…I’m just kinda here.

10. Shipwrecked. PLEASE do not quote me on this, but I *think* it released sometime this past year. Honestly most of the reason this book suffered was due to the lack of interesting characters, or characters in general because off the top of my head all I can remember are the MC, the LI, Dr. Hale, and the LI’s old business partner but I can’t even remember their name at this point. Hell, I can’t even remember much of the plot, and even after playing a chapter I remember forgetting almost everything about it pretty much immediately.

9. Wishful Thinking. I actually quite liked this book. It was lighthearted and pretty fun during a time where we needed some lightheartedness to balance out the more intense/angsty book releases. But unfortunately, the plot itself was kinda meh, and since it was a standalone, there was no real reason to remember it. Even worse, this book began the unfortunate trend of reusing background characters as MC’s “close friends”.

8. Foreign Affairs. Remember when FA was announced and, the dumbasses that we were, we were all convinced it would save the fandom from the book drought? Yeah…it feels like such a distant memory now. The book seemed really, really promising. And it could have been. But holy hell, it was executed so poorly and the premise of the plot was so flimsy. What I once thought would be a great book is now one of the ones I just squint at when I remember it even exists.

7. A Very Scandalous Proposal. I’ve talked about this one a little bit before. The main appeal of AVSP was Simon/Ava. If you didn’t like them? Tough shit, buddy. The main goal of the book was to uncover the secrets of the Montjoy family. Unfortunately, PB didn’t give us a reason to care about or find interest in said Montjoy family, which is probably why the book faded from my memory so quick.

6. Passport to Romance. This is kind of a weird one for me. I forget it exists most of the time, but then when I do remember it, I remember how truly terrible it was, while most of the other books on this list aren’t very fresh in my memory. It was so unimpressive, bland, and the characters were tolerable at best and obnoxious at worst (ELLIOT LANGDON).

5. Rising Tides. The book was okay…but it pushed a generic “save the earth” message while forcing us to pay to clean the town. The MC was a sidekick in her own story which would’ve been fine, but Charlie was such an annoying character that it wasn’t even enjoyable. Also, the Big Bads conceded waaaaay too easily at the end. I’m not even exaggerating when I say that I forgot about this book in less than a week after the final chapter aired.

4. Witness: A Bodyguard Romance. Believe it or not, despite how awful this book was, I forgot about it pretty quickly. It could’ve been a really cool story, but it focused too heavily on romance when the MC and Cassian’s lives were on the line quite literally at every second. Other than that…I truthfully do not remember much about this book other than the Irish mob.

3. Ms. Match. This book was decent enough and it didn’t stop releasing until that long ago. However, the plot was one of those “fight to reach the top and win the competition” plots which quite frankly have been overdone in Choices for a few years now. Not to mention, there weren’t a lot of interesting characters except for Maggie and maaaaaybe the MC’s dad but that’s pushing it a little. The reason it’s so high on this list is because it didn’t end that long ago, yet I can’t seem to remember a damn thing about the book, other than that I HATED the love interest.

2. Home for the Holidays. Many moons ago, this was considered one of the worst, if not, THE worst, book in Choices. And many moons ago, I agreed. But the horrific mediocrity of this holiday flurry of fuck was outshined by some truly awful stories and simply faded into obscurity.

1. Sunkissed. As I made this list, I scrolled through the series on the app, and while most books on this list elicited an “oh yeah, I kinda remember this” from me, when I saw this one, I was like “holy shit, I completely forgot this book was even a thing”. While Home For the Holidays and Sunkissed are both sort of (for lack of a better word) Hallmark-y, Sunkissed was longer and, in my opinion, a little sloppier. The book just wasn’t sure what it wanted to be. A lighthearted summer beach romance? A tale of a family’s struggles with grief and interpersonal conflict in the wake of a father and husband’s untimely death? Fuck it, we’ll uncomfortably cram BOTH into the main plot, execution be damned!

[heartofstanding]

Five Things You Might Find in My Fics

@shredsandpatches tagged me in this a month ago and while I do also love navel-gazing about my fic and talking about it, I've been busy with other things and then forgot. But I've done it now!

Angst, angst and more angst. I've been told on good authority that "extremely upsetting" is my hallmark and sure enough, the #1 additional tag on my AO3 profile is "angst" and the #2 tag is "heavy angst" so it checks out. Even the fics that aren't meant to be upsetting have a bit of angst in them. I'm not very good at keeping the angst out but then I don't think I ever really try, it's just not very interesting to me. I think for me, I'm interested in character histories and how they carry that around. It's probably telling that I got obsessed with the Epictetus quote, "you are a little soul carrying around a corpse" some years back.

Sympathy and nuance. Hopefully this doesn't sound too up myself... I don't like the sort-of goodies and baddies, devils and angels that so much historical fiction and a great hunk of fandoms in general do. I like the idea that everyone has their own complex personality, that while the story might be from one character's POV, if we moved into a different character's POV, everything would be different particularly if that character is in some way in opposition to the first character. I usually end up loving everyone and just get a bit "now you might think Henry IV is a bit of a cock and he is a bit of a cock but he is my cock!" levels of defensive.

Family issues. Probably part of my interest in character histories, I'm just very interested in the issues within family. Give me a character with daddy issues, with mummy issues, with brother issues, with sister issues and I'm there for it. Honestly, I could barely understand anything in the Henriad the very first time I watched it but I understood Prince Hal's daddy issues. The family issues I write don't really reflect my own family issues but I do find them interesting to explore.

Characters grounded in context, the ordinary. I'm not quite sure how I'd describe this. I tend to be happiest playing within the bonds of the universe, at least as far as it can be recovered, than to reject it to write a sort of power fantasy? I'm not particularly interested in like, the idea of writing female characters as some "yas kween slay" type of character. I'd rather ground their character in (my attempt to recreate) their "real" context than an idealised, perfect-for-modern-consumption world.

My own thing. I guess this is sort of a cop-out answer and also related to the above but in general, I'm not really interested in following sort of trends? It's not to say that I don't, can't or won't like popular things in fandom but I'm more interested in like, hitting my Id's happy spot than like writing something that I know the fandom will like. I've tended to be interested in more obscure figures or gotten into things past their heyday, even if they are now judged "basic" by fandom (hello, yes, I turned up late with Starbucks for Loki in 2017). And stuff that's really popular in fandom can hit me as, like, overexposed and make me. a bit. y'know. tired and less interested in it? I guess it's a sort of thing of "well, everyone else is writing that so I don't have to and it's a bit boring when everything is like that". Like, the fanon about dwarven culture that came out of The Hobbit films - potentially, very interesting! But everyone was doing their own version of the same thing ("the stuff in Tolkien's books is an Elf lie and dwarven culture looks like 2010s fandom's idea of a progressive society"), so I found it more interesting to do something more in keeping

Not tagging anyone since it's taken so long for me to do this but if anyone wants to, please consider yourself tagged by me!

[denimbex1986]

'Oliver Stone said Friday he was shocked to hear that the stars of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer had walked out of its London premiere the day before as SAG-AFTRA officially declared strike action.

“I know several producers are opening movies, like Oppenheimer. Chuck Roven, he was in London. I heard it was going to be cancelled,” said Stone, when asked for his view on the strike.

“I don’t know if it went ahead but all the actors left. That was shocking that they really meant business and cut off right away all the promotion, which is big.”

Commenting on the ongoing 11-week WGA strike, Stone suggested the roots of the current industrial action lie in the deal brokered to end the five-month writers strike in 1988.

“There was a basic miscarriage of justice way back when, when Brian Walton was the head of the WGA, when we gave in. I wasn’t on the front line, but I supported that strike,” said Stone.

“We gave in to the producers. They got away with murder on one of these deals where all that DVD money was deferred. They claimed they were in the hole, in the red, and that they had to get their money back from DVD.

“I forgot what the percentage was, but they took something like the first 75% off the top. The DVD business was huge, especially for my films. So, the gross was never divided fairly.”

Stone said this trend had continued with residuals and profits.

“Not so much residuals, as profits really. Residuals are important for some of the writers who don’t make as much money. But people who do make money, they don’t touch the profits from the film, the studio does,” he said.

“The studio is always telling you that they’re losing money, but they always find a way to make a new level of profit for 10, 15 years. … It’s that perpetual industrial problem with a capitalist group that pays its executives more and more money and screws the average writer.”

Looking back over past industrial action, Stone recalled how the 2007 writers strike initially led to the postponement of his 1968 My Lai massacre drama Pinkville, and then resulted in it being cancelled for good.

“We had three weeks to go and it got cancelled. We got hurt,” he said.

Stone said he doubted there would be a quick or easy resolution to the current writer and actor disputes.

“I don’t think it will be wrapped up quickly. Because well, I don’t understand the economics of Netflix and these new guys, but it’s the same old bullsh*t. You know they’re making money and they always say they’re losing money. It’s the classic conflict that goes back to the 1880s in America.”

Stone was talking to Deadline at the Jerusalem Film Festival, where he showed his 2022 documentary Nuclear Now, arguing the case for nuclear power as the only viable way to tackle climate change.

Based on the book A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow, the work premiered at Venice last year.

The work is a passion project for Stone, who says he was inspired to make the film by his fear of climate change.

“I’m not a science expert and I have no kinship with nuclear power. On the contrary, you could say I was a mild believer in the Jane Fonda-Ralph Nader concept of the 1980s that nuclear power was dangerous,” said the director, who also took co-writing credits with U.S. scientist Joshua Goldstein.

“But it’s clear to me from my travels all over the world, that it’s getting hotter, and hotter, and hotter. We were in Italy, two, three days ago, and they said it was hottest day on record or something.”

Stone was also honored with a lifetime achievement award from the Jerusalem Film Festival at the opening ceremony Thursday evening alongside Helen Mirren and Belgian directorial duo Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne.

The director last spent extensive time in the country in 2002 at the height of Second Intifada to make his documentary Persona Non Grata, in which he interviewed Israeli leaders Benjamin Netanyahu, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon as well as the Palestinian Al Aqsa Brigade on the Middle East conflict.

Two decades on, he suggested the situation is unchanged.

“It’s a repetitive cycle. I’ve been here several times. I planted an olive tree for peace here in the ’90s with my then-partner Arnon Milchan and came back in 2002 for Persona Non Grata. … I don’t see a difference. It’s just worse. Like it’s getting hotter. It’s just getting more and more choked.”'

[tiredlaoshi]

I Was Downloading Gay Porn So My Uncle Sent Me To University

I Was Downloading Gay Porn So My Uncle Sent Me To University

The place is hot, humid beyond acceptable, noisy—and chaotic. Overall, this place is not something Lan Wangji will be willing to visit let alone spend four years of university.

How did he end up in this place and why is he here if he looks like he will die any minute? Well, it could all be blamed on an ad that floated on Lan Wangji’s computer screen. Lan Wangji went home from school stressed and in a terrible mood. He wanted to let off some steam, but he is not the type to randomly hook up with anyone just because. He is a romantic and he has values, for your information. So, the only logical thing for him to do is to jerk off himself.

He set his bags down on the floor beside his bed. He reached his study desk in three big strides and logged in on his home computer. He quickly typed on his incognito browser the name of his favored gay pornography site. There might be something new and interesting to watch. He was browsing the landing page and did not find anything that piqued his interest, so he decided to type in his favorite keywords. What are those keywords? It stays between him and his browser, but there is nothing appropriate about it. 

Finally, a short video from a freshly made account popped out. From looking at the profile, the model wrote that he was a newbie and exploring his sexuality. He proceeded to say that he was sure he was straight until a few months ago before graduating high school, but an accident with his best friend’s hunk brother made him rethink his beliefs. Lan Wangji had snorted at that because that was how he also had his gay awakening. A half-naked Nie Mingjue walked out of his brother’s room looking for Xichen, droplets of water dripping from his hair down to his hard abs. Lan Wangji ran back to his room as fast as he could and had the most mindblowing wank of his young life with the image of a wet Nie Migjue on top of him.

He continued reading the profile for a few more seconds and decided that the person was interesting. As his profile described, he will be exploring things by himself and with the help of a friend from time to time. He is also asking anyone who would come across his profile and videos to be a little nicer—leave some helpful tips and not comment if they have nothing nice to say. 

Lan Wangji clicked on the sole video on the profile. The video was tagged as amateur—which is fine. The video quality is not grainy and the audio is clear enough to make out that it was filmed in a bedroom. The lighting is perfect and it helps the viewer to put their focus on the subject in the frame. A long-legged young man wearing the tiniest red shorts Lan Wangji had ever seen sat on a gaming chair. It perfectly accentuated his curvy ass and delicious thighs. 

His tiny shorts were paired with a cropped black hoodie that rode up to his torso when he raised his arms to fix the camera angle. Lan Wangji never understood why people wear cropped hoodies, it did not make sense to wear something that will warm you but does not warm your tummy. But now, something clicked in his mind. Yes, cropped hoodies are appealing and possibly might be one of the best things modern fashion has trended.

The internet connection was a bit sporadic today for some reason. Lan Wangji decided to hit the download button for the video; he did not want his wank session to be interrupted by anything. After a minute, the video was at 69% percent completion when the door to his room suddenly opened. He forgot to lock his door.

The doorway offers a clear view of his computer screen and its second screen. Lan Wangji turned his head at a break-neck speed and locked eyes with his uncle. His uncle who was the strictest person Lan Wangji had ever met had the strongest opinion about any debauchery. If he finds out one of his precious golden boys was downloading gay porn and jerks off to it, it will definitely send him straight to the ancestors. With his heart thumping loudly in his chest, Lan Wangji stood up and raised his hands to his uncle.

“Uncle, please, I can explain. Whatever you saw I can explain it.” He is close to crying, his tears are dangerously gathering in his tear ducts, and his mind is running a mile a minute. To his utter disbelief and confusion instead of getting the sternest scolding of his life, his uncle has given him an approving look. “Wangji, I did not know you had already chosen a university to attend. Yiling is far from home and mostly attended by working class and peasant children, but I think its climate may help you shape into a better man. I am proud you want to attend a state university and immerse yourself with the lower classes. This is a good experience to broaden your understanding of the world,” his uncle finished.

What university? 

What Yiling? 

What social classes?

What immersion?

What?

What?

What?

“We will talk about this more when your brother comes home for family dinner this weekend. Finish signing up for the university and send me the confirmation. I will send a letter to the university chancellor, he was a good friend.” His uncle gave him one last approving nod before closing the door. 

He was left there stumped for a minute before he was able to move. Once his uncle’s shadow could not be seen from the gap under his door and his footsteps ceased to be heard, Lan Wangji dropped on his chair. He did not know where his uncle got the idea that he had already chosen a university but he was still thankful his uncle did not call him out for going on a porn site and illegally downloading stuff. 

He lost all his desire to jerk himself off, the anxiety of five minutes earlier had exhausted him too much. With a sigh of relief, he turned back to his computer screen and saw the signup page for a university in Yiling. Lan Wangji did not know whether he would laugh or cry. Who would have known that a pop-up advertisement would save him from being outed to his uncle?

He closed the browser, the video he just downloaded completely forgotten by now and shut down his computer. He slumped on his table for a minute, then rolled to his adjacent bed to sleep. It was an exhausting day, when sleep claimed Lan Wangji, he skipped dinner and did not dream of anything.

When the weekend family dinner came, Lan Wangji had completely forgotten about the incriminating porn video on his computer. He had also forgotten that his uncle told him his application to Yiling University would be the highlight of this week’s family dinner. A big mistake.

His older brother gave him a proud smile when he opened the door to him and his boyfriend. Yes, boyfriend, because unlike Lan Wangji—Xichen had been openly gay since high school. At first, it scared him of what it would mean for their family of three but Lan Qiren assured his brother that he would still love him even if he was not happy of his choices. It helped a lot that Xichen was an achiever and of good moral character. It also helped that his boyfriend—Nie Mingjue—was from a good family and a respectable young man himself. It took some time for Lan Qiren to adjust to it, but all-in-all everything went well for them two. 

Lan Wangji, however, is a different case. He has not proven himself enough yet—he thinks. He achieved accolades academically, in his chosen sports, and music. He was praised by most people, or hated by those who envy him. He was another golden boy like his brother. A part of him is scared that his uncle might not understand him or take him seriously if reveals himself now. So, he decided to tell his uncle once he graduated college and started a stable career.

“Wangji, I heard you chose to attend a state university. I am proud of you didi!” Xichen exclaimed once they sat down at the dinner table. “Xichen, don’t get excited too much. You are scaring Wangji,” Nie Mingjue chided but also could not keep off a proud grin on his face. “Ah, nonsense! Wangji-didi knows I am just happy. I always worry that you would not take it upon yourself to explore but here you are. Mingjue, when has my didi grown?” Xichen kept on teasing.

Lan Wangji cursed inwardly. How would he tell his family that he never planned on attending a faraway university? They are all proud of him now; he would hate that he had to break their expectations.

“Gege, about that, I’m thinking of not going there anymore,” he declared to his family.

“Wangji?”

“Oh, didi!”

Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen both exclaimed at the same time.

“Wangji, what do you mean? Explain yourself,” his uncle hurriedly told him. He could not tell them that it was only a misunderstanding between him and his uncle, but he also could not tell them how they came to this misunderstanding. So, he thought of the best thing to say that he knew was not a lie but also not entirely true.

“Uncle, gege, I changed my mind,” he started. “I thought about it and I decided to stay. Uncle does not have anyone to live with him, and I did not think it would be nice to leave uncle alone,” he finished.

Lan Wangji was proud of himself and his answer. He gave himself an imaginary tap on the back for coming up with an acceptable excuse. Now, his family would not be disappointed.

“Oh, Wangji. I totally understand your qualms. Before I moved out, I also thought about it hundreds of times. It was a hard decision, but I realized I also had to spread my wings and fly on my own. Didi, would it not be possible to change your mind?” His brother is really sweet and understanding, and he thankful for it.

“Gege, I think there would be a better time to do the same, but not now. My time will come,” he reassured his brother.

Lan Xichen turned to Nie Mingjue with a pleading look, but he only lightly shook his head and squeezed their hands together. Nie Mingjue also had a younger brother, but unlike Wangji, he was more outgoing and could make friends more easily.

“Wangji, your brother is only concerned about you. I hope you understand. But whatever you choose, we will always support you,” he said with a reassuring brotherly voice.

“Thank you, Mingjue-gege. I appreciate that.” Lan Wangji sincerely said.

The table was quiet for a few more moments, and everyone was in comfortable silence before Lan Qiren broke it. “Wangji, I understand your concern, and I am grateful you think of me. However, as your brother pointed out, it is time for you to be independent. If I was the only thing holding you back into staying, let me reassure you, I will be fine.”

“But Uncle, it would not be right to leave you,” Lan Wangji protested, but before he could continue Lan Qiren held his palm up to silence him.

“Wangji, it truly warms my heart that you grew into a thoughtful young man. I aged but I am not old, at least not that much. I can take care of myself just fine. You are young, but not too young. It is high time for you to make a name for yourself. Make me proud, Wangji. But do not hesitate to come home when it all becomes too much. I am here and this house will always welcome you back.” 

“Uncle,” Lan Wangji was not able to continue what he was going to say because he had already burst into tears. This was the first time their uncle was openly affectionate to them. His uncle was not cruel but he was also not the type to openly express emotions with words. For the first time in a while, the family hugged each other.

Thinking about all of that back, Lan Wangji resigned himself to attending Yiling University. This place is far from what he was used to—it was everything Guss was not. The streets were bustling with life. There were shops and vendors everywhere. The people were friendly and smiles all the time. The nightlife was also bustling, the city never seem to sleep at all. It was a big adjustment for him.

He walked into the university gate and bumped into someone. He was annoyed, why would people run around and not look at where they were going? “Sorry, sorry, sorry! Are you hurt? I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to bump into you!” The man apologized to him and checked him out for any hurt.

“It’s okay, I’m fine,” Lan Wangji said. “I’m really sorry. I was already late for class and this was just the first day. By the way, I’m Wei Ying—a sophomore. I can walk you to your class, how about that?” The man, Wei Ying, offered to him with a blinding smile.

“Sure, I would love that, I’m Lan Wangji.” Attending a faraway state university might not be too bad, Lan Wangji thought to himself while Wei Ying was chattering with him as they walked into the university building.

Inspired by this Tweet

[katyspersonal]

I subscribe under every word. In fact, I say what this person is describing is PREFERABLE way. When you rely on internet popularity to work in art field, you'll end up losing your soul, without exagerration. You'll have to keep up with the trends and trim your original ideas into popular demand to win more exposure, you'll have to provide at the right time, you'll have to say and think the "correct" things whether you personally understand them or not, you'll have to trim your personality and identity into mellow boring thin that would not make anyone angry, and don't forget instantly rejecting "problematic" things and blocking people who even slightly might get you in trouble even if just yesterday you called them a friend. And not only you'll lose the sight of why you loved drawing to begin with and become miserable, but also trading your morals and personality for this wealth does NOT guarantee protection from some freak obsessively stalking your entire internet history and some day jeopardizing or straight up crippling this career over a dumb thing you said months or years ago. And how do you save your career? You out your personal, intimate feelings to explain why you said that before the witch-hunters court and your "fans" that are ready to grab pitch forks any moment and grovel. And God forbid you speak like a normal person and not like a corporative brainlet! That is not acceptable!

Okay I got carried away but you probably could think of at least several names of the internet-popular artists that went through this cycle. Creativity should be liberating and enriching, not restrictive and sanitized (and with this darn Damocles Sword above your head as a bonus). I can't express how much it is NOT worth it. Your immortal soul, your principles and interestes are more important than shoveling dollars from Patreon and commissions. My IRL friend got art degree in university, and the way she earns money from her art? Just like OP said. She draws things for events, she does exposure of her paintings at events and some get sold, she offered her designs and concepts for a theatre that was struggling without a designer at the time, she painted bland boring walls in a bar into something interesting... And also as someone who knows a ton about art and art history, she opened her small school with a friend, and enough people love her art to want to learn from her specifically. Not art tutorials for her patrons, but actual, physical room with cool pupils!

Everything is possible, really. Don't give up, guys, and always prioritize opportunities that do not rely on online popularity. Becoming marketable online is not the only way, yall just list courage and forgot what really matters because of capitalism.

I think at some point in time we need to sit down and start explaining to artist who want to make a career out of art that there are FAR more options than just "living off of commissions" and "posting my art online and praying I get paid for it".

[womanhood2]

Can I ask/what led you to transitioning twice? If you've already answered then feel free to link me so you don't have to type it all out again! Thank you

No problem! I did type up a brief “about me” a few months ago when I started this blog, but I forgot to pin it and I don’t think it went very in-depth about my initial transition so I will go ahead and re-tell it in better depth.

I do want to clarify that my first transition was entirely social, and thus my first “detransition” would be considered desisting and not a formal, medical “detransition”. However, I say that I “detransitioned twice” to clarify that I changed my identity from and back to female on two separate occasions, as I feel like saying “desisted and detransitioned” could lead some people to believe that I simply started identifying as female and stopped hormones only once and at the same time.

But back to my initial transition. As I mentioned it was entirely social and almost entirely online, save for one person I knew in real life (my at-the-time boyfriend). This was 2014-2017 and in the rural American south- transgender was NOT a thing in our mainstream (by 2017 there were occasional mentions of it but it was still rather obscure and certainly not something that happened in middle or elementary schools).  Homosexual relationships were barely tolerated. I should mention I was also a closeted lesbian/bisexual- I didn’t know at the time that those two labels were different, but I knew that I liked girls in a much different way than I “liked”(envied and wanted to be friends with) boys. The only reason I had the “boyfriend” that I mentioned earlier was so that I could make friends with more boys, as girls did NOT like me. This was for multiple reasons: 1) I was an undiagnosed autistic. I only “knew” how to talk about arthropods, horses, and anime. The preppy rich girls at the private k-12 school that I earned a scholarship to did not want to talk about any of those 2) as I mentioned before, I was a “scholarship student”(aka someone who did not have much money and was from a family that lived “out in the country”) which meant that I did not go on interesting vacations, have a boat that everyone could hang out on, wear super expensive clothes and makeup, ect and 3) (once everyone found out) I was a lesbian. Girls did not want to be near me once they learned that I had a crush on another girl. I will not go into heavy detail but there was also an incident where multiple girls who were part of a Christian worship group attacked me after school for being a lesbian. (That was not the only time I was attacked at school for not being straight, but the other time was by a boy. That time was more intense and the school got involved and I came within a hair of being outed to my parents.) On top of this, my family was HEAVILY involved in the Baptist church, and thus not open to anyone (let alone their child) being LGBT

So clearly, being openly gay or transgender was NOT an option in my environment if I valued my safety. Also, no child wants to loose the home and family that they love! Even if you are uncomfortable in your body and jealous every day of the boys that you go to school with, you are 12 (or 13 or 14 or 15) and you would still rather have a bed to sleep in at night and food and parents that do not hit you most of the time than nothing. (That is another trend I tend to see with these openly trans children- none of them seem to have parents who would hit or abuse them for “acting out of line”, “associating that with our family”, ect…. Heh, they really don’t know “oppression”.)

So what was I to do in such a hostile environment? Go to the Internet of course! Online forums where I first learned of being transgender and already had transgender friends there- except some of my irl friend already knew my account names, and I couldn’t risk them telling their parents. So I made new accounts on the same sites but with a different name, pronouns, and often a different age. Eventually I told my online friends about my new accounts, but kept them hidden from my irl friends so that my irl friends only knew my first account (where I was a girl) and my online friends interacted with my through my new account (where I was a boy). I firmly believed that I was supposed to be a boy, and thought that when I got away from my parents, I would be able to transition and all my problems would be solved. Every night I would pray to God that he would make me intersex or make my body produce more testosterone somehow, so that I would look and sound more like a boy, since it would be years before I would be able to transition. I would “practice binding” using methods I saw online (such as the “sports bra method”) when my parents were asleep. (TRIGGER WARNING FOR SELF HARM) I should mention that I also experienced severe dysphoria involving my genitals, and would self harm them.

I should note that I WAS seeing a therapist at the time but she only diagnosed me with social anxiety (not even autism! Despite me telling her about how every child in my school hated me and I had no friends) and eventually for the abuse that my siblings and I were experiencing from our parents (my stepmom specifically would become violent towards me and later my brother during my middle and early high school years). So why didn’t I tell her about the gender dysphoria and self harm? Simple! We were still in the south, and she was a……. You guessed it! Christian “therapist”. 🫠

Right before high school (I was 15) I went on a field trip where I had to spend a lot of time with the girls in my grade. It made me soooooo dysphoric but I could not tell anyone because of the risk that it posed to my safety if my parents found out. I was terrified and so convinced that all the girls somehow knew that I was actually trans, even though I was still dressing (somewhat) like a girl and using a girls name. I thought that they knew that I knew I was trans, and they hated me for continuing to pretend to be a girl. Being with the boys during the times that I could on that trip made me feel so much better. It relieved me to pretend to be one of them, even if from the shadows. That trip really “cemented” in me that I was actually a boy, so when I got home from the trip I decided that I needed to break the news to my boyfriend (we were not allowed to have our phones for the duration of the trip). I don’t remember the conversation very well, but it went something like this.

Me: Hey, I love you and I need to tell you something

Him: Sure, what is it?

Me: I’m pretty sure I am actually a boy.

Him: No you are not.

Me: I really think I am. None of the girls like me and I don’t act like a girl or enjoy girly things. I am sorry if you don’t love me for this.

Him: I would love you even if you were a boy, but you’re not a boy. I am a boy, so if you were a boy I would know. If you tell everyone that you are a boy, then the boys will try to hurt you. I want don’t want to see you be hurt, especially by my friends. Please don’t tell anyone that you think you’re a boy.

It hurt me to hear from my closest friend that he did not believe I was a boy, and that boys/men would not accept me as one of them. However, this did not change my mind. I knew that we were in high school and this boyfriend would probably break up with me eventually. But I did heed his advice and continued not to tell anyone in real life that I believed I was a transgender boy/man.

As for my first detransition/desisting… It’s kind of hard to explain. I remember it but it was rather insignificant compared to what I’ve heard other people go through. It was maybe a year after I “came out” to the now ex-boyfriend. I was in the hallway in my school. The boys were walking past me and I realized they were taller than me now. I was jealous, so jealous, as my hight dysphoria was probably the most intense (possibly second to the genital dysphoria) dysphoria that I experienced. And then I just… made the realization. I realized that at this point it was too late for testosterone already. If I wanted to have a man’s body, I would have needed the hormones years ago. By the time I would be able to get hormones and be able to transition, it would already be too late. I would never catch up. What was the point of chasing something unattainable?

So I went inactive on my trans accounts. I did give my new discord (where I would be cis) to some of the people who knew me on those accounts but it was only very few, only 2 or 3 of which I still talk to today.

Internally, it was a slow process. It started with just joking about being a girl. Then eventually, one day I went into the women’s restroom and realized I didn’t feel like an imposter! Then the “women in STEM” craze came along and I realized maybe I could feel more like a women with these girls. I learned to love my tiny breasts once they started to develop. I learned that not shaving my facial or body hair (something that I had always HATED being forced to do) did not make me more of a man or less of a woman. I still have dysphoria involving my hips, height, and genitals.

So that was my first transition and desisting. I did not expect it to be so long! As for my second transition and consequent detransition, it is unfortunately darker, and involves sexual abuse, manipulation, and drugs and thus I will be making a second post about it since this one is already quite lengthy and contains some heavy content.

[cisthehuman]

CisLunar Dev Blog #2: BonBon

I had an official title for these updates, and as usual I plumb forgot LOL (Edit 4/9/2024: I added the correct title now lol)

Either way I wanted to post more on here (which will in turn make me work more so there is more to post).

I took a lovely weekend a couple months ago to finally begin redoing some of the designs for CisLunar. Including Cis and Lunar, there are 5 characters in all. As more parts of the story are released, there will be more characters added!

But let us focus on the boy of the hour shall we? Today we're going to meet Bonny "BonBon" Bond, Lunar's bestie and fellow radio host/informant/partner in (literal) crime.

Let's start off with his initial design!

I wanted BonBon to be different than Lunar in a lot of ways. First off he's a dog boy (he's got a little bunny in him too). I've always found Lunar looks very....awake, if that makes sense, so I wanted to give BonBon a very sleepy vibe. I wanted him to be a goth that wore mostly neutrals. And yes, he can do that cartoon dog thing when he's listening to something far away.

When I redesigned Lunar, I knew I would have to update BonBon in some fashion (not to toot my own horn, but he's a pretty solid design already). My first step was to doodle him as they were and see what I wanted to get fixed.

When I drew him at this point, I already made the decision to make his hair visibly more curly and changed the fringe. After this little doodle, I decided to make him full time wears all black goth. After getting some inspo from pinterest, I got what I think is a much better design! He still looks adorably sleepy.

In the new design I also decided to make his ears more visibly ear-like. The chain clock is now a nice little dog collar that goes nice with all of his piercings. LOL he also went from not showing a lot of skin to showing a lot more skin. I'm happy to go with the all black outfit as it counters nicely with how bright Lunar's outfit is. While I wanted to add more detail, I wanted to make it simple enough that I can draw more than once lol. Another thing I wanted to establish was the sense of style of the world through the characters' outfits. I wanted the fashion sense to always push the envelope and be more "otherworldly" but also trace back to vintage trends.

Lunar: You look great! BonBon: Thanks dude. Lunar: I can't believe you commit to a fishnet jumpsuit. BonBon: Girl, I also can't believe I commit to it.

Yay! One redesign down, two more to go! The next character is Lunar's mafia bf, Champagne Nebula. Below is the first try at the redesign. I'm planning on redoing it!

Till then! Seee youuuu next timmmeeee

[beck-a-leck]

2022 Writing in Review

Table Key: W = Worked On; P = Posted A Chapter; New = New story; Done = Completed story. Completed stories have also been Bolded for visual differentiation. Some of the word counts have an * beside them, indicating that the story was not posted. Some story titles have been Redacted. Detail views of the tables sections can be found under the cut.

I kept track of my writing again this year, just as a way to help me keep track of where my writing time is going and how often I'm working on certain projects and see which projects were (sadly) neglected this year. It helps me stay personally organized, particularly when the Project Time Blindness gets me and I think "Oh, I just updated this fic a couple months ago" and check the chart and realize it's been over 6 months.

This year I also kept track of my word counts for my own curiosity just to see how much writing I actually did in a year. And I gotta say I did a lot more than I expected! Like, I knew I was writing a lot, but without the count I never really had an idea of how much. Granted! The word count doesn't reflect Exactly how many words I wrote down.

For the multi-chapter counts that was Word Counts of newly posted chapters. And since many of my multi-chaps have been WIPs for years at this point, there were sections of chapters that maybe wrote 2 or 3 years ago and then got to copy/paste into their appropriate chapter.

For the one shots, though, those are all pretty accurate. Aside from a couple of carry-over from last year exceptions, they were all new ideas this year.

It's always interesting to me to see how my writing trends across the year. When I'm working on one-shots I don't work on my multi-chaps very much. And when I'm working on my multi-chaps I tend to not work on one shots. And what months I didn't get much of anything done because I know I was busy with other things.

All in all I have to say I had a really good year for writing!

Lots of new ideas! Lots of progress on long-running WIPs. Lots of participation in fandom events that were a TON of fun and let me stretch my wings, so to speak.

This year I:

Started and FINISHED one multi-chapter piece within a timely manner. (RIP to all my other years-long WIPS)

I started 17 completely new stories.

I completed 12 stories total.

I filled 28 prompt fills via tumblr. (And I know there are a handful that have been sitting in my inbox since like August. I hope to get to those again one day. When I have fewer other event obligations taking up most of my writing time/energy they are a ton of fun and I will keep doing them in the future)

And I wrote over 226k words this year! (I didn't even count any of the work I did on original things, which I know will likely add another 10k or so words. And there are probably some work on long-running WIPs that I did but forgot to track because I only added like a paragraph or two.)

Next Year:

I want to complete at least one of my Redacted WIPs that I thought was going to be done like 2 years ago and I just keep dragging out the last few chapters.

And overall I think I want to focus more on my long-running WIPs. Just because some of them are Years old, and I do want to finish them up. Mostly because I want to clear off my plate a little before I add any more multi-chap WIPs to the pile. I have one idea I've been sitting on since like 2017 that I keep telling myself to just wait until I finish up a couple other projects and then I can start posting it.

I also hope I can find the motivation to finish up some of the one shots I started this year but then got distracted by other projects and didn't finish. Because I think there are some good ideas in there that should see the light of day.

All in all, I am very much looking forward to seeing where my writing goes next year! Maybe for funsies, I'll start tracking some of my original pieces too. Just to see how they add up.

Multi-Chapter works:

One Shots:

[einpressens]

Ok ok ok ok ok ok okokokokoklbhghxn jvxhidycungzhfzudutsutxmbcuhiginlbnj *ultrasound scream*

You don't understand how your answer made me feel. Like no words can describe. For me your reply was emotionally equal to meeting Steven King and Jesus in one person at 5 am at convince store, while I wear a custom shirt with Devil smooching it from "it". I very much glad that it happened but how. What the chances. I was literally going around my room in circles throwing around random objects because I couldn't calm down myself. I still can't stop smiling, even tho my face is hurting a little.

I don't even know how to describe it properly. I'm not a writter. It's just like, understand me, I'm very small artist. Like literally all my active followers in all of my social media combined can be counted using one hand. There's two at insta. There's one on twitter. And two mutuals on Tumblr. My art don't do well, and that understandable, I'm not drawing much, don't post often and don't chase trends even if I find them interesting. Just don't have much time right now.

And then a very cropped drawing of my wip that has 2 tags, it even doesn't have "my art" tag that I use to make search for my artworks on this blog easier. I didn't expected it to do better than any other. It's even miracle that it even was posted at all.

I long ago decided to post something at least onece a week. What to post didn't mattered, just something once a week, wip, sketch on napkin. Just post something to kill perfectionist in myself. And I kinda missed a lot of weeks and forgot about it. And then I go to a planer that I didn't Opened for more than a month and it Is time to post something to my socials. And there's yet nothing to post. Lineart was barely finished. So I move to next day. And then on next day I have this. And just post it without much care. Just quickly cropped out 90% of the work post it, and just continue working as if didn't happened at all.

I did such bare minimum for it and then it kinda blows up. It has almost 1000 views on twitter alone which is kinda crazy for me. Even if most of them prob scrolled past it without paying much attentio. They have seen it. And then author themselve noticed it. Noticed the work that was two (ok one, smpard did heavy lifting here ngl) tag away from being untraceable, you prob wouldn't have see it if I just tagged it as just wip like I first planned.

It feels like I'm in some cheese success story movie right now. Just look how my day went from my perspective. I posted my wip in the middle of the night in my timezone 'cuz I have unhealthy habit of monitoring notes for one hour after posting. I wake up and there's 18 notification in my Tumblr. They all but two are from my year old drawing, which is resurfaced a little. "Neat" say I to myself and go to college, don't touch social media the whole day and just reread your fic in a little bit of spare time that I have (which wasn't a lot today). Then came back open Tumblr and I blasted by notes, it's one of my most interacted with drawings of this half of year (which mostly as most number of my notes can be without problem be converted into a binary code which reads as "0"). And better of all I got one reply where in the tags a person was as unhinged about them as me. Of course I reply back cuz I'm overjoyed and then this person is actually author of the work for which I do my fan art. Like I probably should have expected you look for sampard fan art at least a little bit. But to find my artwork. And on Tumblr nonetheless.

Also you probably don't fully understand how much your fic mean to me. It was not only my first ever sampard fic it was the fic that hooked me on this ship. Your work is the reason I currently have 5 sampard wips and another 10 ideas written down. Before this fic I wasn't interested in this ship at all. The only reason I readed it was that I started to get overwhelmed by renheng and decided to read something easy, something I'm not so invested in. And then it consumed me even more that renheng. And now I'm here. Your fic fas so good that it me obsessed sampard shipper. And tbh before reading it I didn't like the ship. I always thought that it was kinda silly because they have 0 interactions in canon, so I thought there's wasn't a lot of chemistry between them and can't be. Well you proved me wrong. How much you proved me wrong. Thanks. Genuinely. I love how you characterize them not only together but individually, how you write intimate moment's between them. I wanna praise your work for hours I love it so much. But I kinda need to sleep right now so. You so so so good. Love your work.

I'm so happy that my silly wip of fan art made you feel the same way as your fic made feel me.

P. S. Sorry for long text and prob broking English in a couple of places it's isn't my native language.

P. P. S. Can you give me the name of your mane Tumblr blog so I could tag you when I post finished art. At first I planned to send you a link to fan art on my twitter into your AO3 dm's (?I don't AO3 much. Is it even have those), and still can if you prefer it.

P. P. P. S. Glad you did like hands position and emotions. It took a lot of time to figure out how to properly position them. Also about clothes, I like drawing genshin of star rail character without their overdesigned nightmare of clothings or simplifyed versions, so your fic descriptions were kinda perfect for me. Also I did a little bit of diversion from your description. I didn't touch Sampo's clothing for the most part. But I decided to make Gep's coat muted blue as blue one of main colors in his design and The scene was supposed to be dark so I need to make him stand out.

P. P. P. S. I wanna read next chapter very strong but I hope that you will take your time. As an artistic that once got burn out so much I couldn't forse myself to do any kind of drawing it's better to take relatively short break then burn out for long period of time. I don't know you and how much you need this advise. I hope you don't need it at all. It's just kinda was on the back of my mind and I decided to write it in p.p.p.p.s.

Colors are hRD but bois are Sotf