#and you know what? tumblr really helped!
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2014 - realized I liked girls but began desperately trying to āpray the gay awayā
2016 - stopped believing in Christianity as I began to better accept my sexuality
2020 - publicly came out as bisexual, and shortly after my gender crisis began
2021 - nonbinary ? weāll run with it, Iām experimenting! Iām playing with it! Iāve been in college for a year so now I have the room to try some things out!
2023 - my first pride parade! and the gender crisis continues onā¦. I would really love more masculine featuresā¦ a deeper voice is my dreamā¦ I see men with flat chests and I get so envious. maybe Iām trans?
2024 - FINALLY allowing myself to use multiple labels that feel right! nonbinary, transmasc, genderfluid, genderqueer, they all feel like ME! planning on starting HRT after I get married and get onto my fiancĆ©ās health insurance. plan on getting married in a wedding dress because THATāS WHAT I WANT! because gender is not a strict binary and I am allowed to play with it however I want! my gender is not for the pleasure or comfort of anyone else! I got to experience my SECOND pride finally feeling content with myself and my identity! Iām happy! Iām so happy :)
#the journey of finding yourself is a long process and honestly it never ends#Iāve been in the journey of self discovery for a decade now and Iām still learning something new about myself every day#but I finally feel like I know myself#I have a good community of understanding people#and you know what? tumblr really helped!#make fun of this hellsite all you want but the people on here are so helpful#getting reminders from a wide community of people that you donāt need to fit into strict labels#or you can use multiple labels!#or none at all!#just do whatever feels right to YOU#there is no wrong way to be queer!#I love you tumblr queers#even when I had my first blog in 2014 when I was 12 it felt nice to have a space that made me feel like I was gonna be okay#thank you tumblr queers#trans#lgbtq#ftm#trans man#transgender#transgender man#transmasc#trans pride#donnieisaprettyboy#ftm problems#genderfluid#genderqueer#nonbinary
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I hope leftists who think theyāre above voting for president or are voting for Jill Stein or whoever because itās their stupid way of protesting the system feel good about themselves, especially if Trump wins partly because of your negligence š I know youāre not doing shit to plan the proletarian revolution, especially before January, so you guys better not complain about something harming you that you didnāt even bother to try and change
(edit: changed the last part bc I wrote āā¦if life gets a lot worse for youā cause that does nottt sound right at all and I apologize for writing that)
#if you have the option to help make change and do nothing then thatās your fault#ah yes! taking absolutely no action! that'll show the corrupt two-party system!#Iām literally a leftist too I donāt like aligning with the democrat party either but likeā¦ what other choice do we have right now#why not just vote for the one who sucks less#also you do know Jill Stein and Rudolph Ware donāt give a fuck about you or any leftist issues right#like theyāre literally just there to get in the way for people who are too dumb to realize theyāre basically just handing a vote to Trump#sorry for my raging here we see that I am very nervous for this election lol#and i know i'm being dramatic i don't actually want life to get worse for anyone but like... if you're anti-trump but don't vote for kamala#you're basically just getting what you asked for#american politics#vote blue#us politics#i know trump supporters are the ones to be angrier with ofc but this type of people are really irritating too#breaking: 20-year-old chronically online tumblr user changes the minds of thousands last-minute by ranting (/s)
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god the way this island sits on top of and reflects what's going on in your mind, and if you're already justifying what you're doing to yourself, it amplifies that, and as you justify and rationalize to cope, it makes that rationalization feel like objective truth, and then before you know it you've broken 206 bones twice to try and get back to a shadow of who you once were, except in doing so you're making it even harder to go back because you've warped yourself beyond recognitionā
#misfits and magic spoilers#d20#misfits and magic#d20 spoilers#mismag#hi tumblr it's been a while but that was so fucking CHILLING and i don't know anyone who's caught up on mismag yet#so i have to put this out into the void because otherwise i will lose my mind because what the FUCK aabria#ALSO god the horror of how you've changed finally catching up to you when you're faced with people who know who you were in the past#but you smooth that away and bury it again and then the island HELPS YOU DO THAT#i just. i really really hope we check in on lemli again before the end of the season lol#my ramblings#not cr#dropout
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please donāt be sad little sprout, you are loved š± š¤
š±
#š±Thank you<33š±#I guess my latest vent art post made some of you guys worried. I'm sorry ;;n;; )#but I'm alright. well.. kind of? Like I haven't done anything to myself kind of alright?#maybe I should explain bit about my situation but at the same time I don't feel comfortable to open up too much#but simply said it's about doing art as a job and mental health#Things haven't been going well but I am getting help for my mental health#This is all what I will say for now about my situation#I apologize again that I made you guys worried#but I do warn that I might post more vent art if I get enough energy to draw#this is just one way how I deal with my emotions#but if you don't like vent art I suggest to block the words vent and vent art#I remember tumblr has this option somewhere??#and uhh.. I don't really know how to end this post but thank you everyone who has been sending support<33#I might not know how to reply to them but I have read them all and I'm very thankful for all the support what you guys have given meš±#Thank youš±#ask#anon#me talking
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tim and bernard who break up and it's nothing big, no one cheated or anything. it's just their lifestyles didn't work out well together. tim cannot give up vigilantism currently and bear cannot handle the level of danger tim puts himself in. and on the other hand, tim cannot handle the fact that bear chooses to run into danger as an emt bc he already worries about everything but now he has to worry if he'll find his boyfriend convulsing from fear gas in a random alley but also bear who felt the life drain out of darla cannot stand the thought of not helping people and runs headfirst into dangerous situation after dangerous situation hoping that every person he saves can somehow make up for the fact that he could not save darla.
(he very pointedly does not think about the fact that there was nothing he could do because if he thinks about that, he'll spiral until they have to lock him in arkham too)
and so they break up but they were tim & bernard in high school and when they started dating they balanced out the worst of each other and they became tim&bernard. and everyone who knows them, knows that they're better together but they cant be together, they refuse actually because they cannot lose another person to the violence of gotham and by the time they figure out that they cant work together as long as the other is an emt or vigilante, it's too late for both them. they've already left too many pieces of themselves in each other.
tim still knows what bear means when he says "tim" in that exasperated voice. tim still goes boneless when he hears bear say "baby" in that firm tone. bear can still read tim like a book. he still knows the right way to massage tim's neck so that tim can go to sleep. everyone at the first responders gala knows not to bother ceo drake-wayne and senior emt dowd when they're talking.
(and if they're standing a little too close to each other than what is normal, who are they to judge? everyone knows that dowd and drake-wayne have history)
and if everyone on the night shift has caught red robin with his head tucked into the crook of emt dowd's neck as emt dowd runs a soothing hand up and down the vigilante's back, well then, they just quietly back away.
(after all, dowd's one of like, five, emts that can get the bats to receive medical treatment so if turning a blind eye to whatever the fuck they have going on is what allows them to give back to their heroes, then the night shift will do it every time)
and of course, tim and bear are practical people. they loved (love) each other sure, but when your lives are fundamentally incompatible, well, you cant get too stuck on the what-ifs, that's for sure. and so they do find love with other people and yeah, maybe it's not what they expected love to be when they first fell in love with each other. it's not the bubbly, stomach-swoopy, cant stop grinning, feeling that permeated tim&bernard's early days or the i Know you/you Know me that was their middle or the quiet despair that was their end but it is contentment. and in a life with as many losses as theirs, contentment is something they hold dearly
and they're happy! truly! but sometimes, at galas when they're making each other snort champagne out their noses or in darkened alleyways when their clothes are both stained with blood or at rallies for stricter gun regulations in gotham where they both sit too close to each other, fingers enclosed around each other in a death grip, when the presenters inevitably bring up grieves
(worst school shooting in gotham in decades, there's blood on their hands and blood in their mouths and darla is dead in between both of them and there is a chasm so wide that they are screaming to get their voices across and she will always be dead and maybe this had always been the problem that she is dead and there is no coming back from that and that there is blood on their hands and blood in their mouth and blood on their han-)
but sometimes, most especially on opposite sides of the street, as life pulls them in different directions, just sometimes, they see each other and just for a second, nothing too long, the flap of a hummingbird's wings, the time it takes to blink, an electron's orbital, they look at each other and for the briefest moment, blue on brown, a barely noticeable stutter in their steps, the space between heartbeats, because this is all they will give themselves because they do not dwell on what-ifs or what-could-have-beens, or what-should-have-beens, or delusions of a softer world, their eyes meet and they think to themselves, god, in another life, i would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with him.
#what the fuck is this#the theme was wistfulness. hopefully that came across right. and like i wanted this to be all 1 text block so you feel how it all collapses#into that 1 thought they have at they end but fuckass tumblr has a 4096??? text limit for a single paragraph???? so here's multiple paragra#anyway here is my middle of the road sad timbern hc. do i think this will happen? no? is this still a fun world to play in? yeah absolutely#also super huge fan of darla haunting the narrative. darla as this chasm they cannot cross. darla as smth they shelter each other from#but also smth like a 2 way blade. it cuts them both. it will never stop cutting them. smth smth the wound will always bleed#also i cannot stress how important it is that they are happy with other people!!! they are both satisfied with other people. it's just that#they have a very specific history and they are the only two people who really know and understand that history#and also it's not that theyre unhappy with their partners but just that smtimes they look at each other and... wonder. in a softer world#maybe i could've been a chef and you could've still been a superhero and we could've still worked out. maybe we would've gotten a boat#together and maybe we could've come home to each other. maybe i could've trusted you to come home to me. maybe you could've#understood my need to help people. maybe we could've held our love as something precious.#maybe in a softer world our love wasn't something that hurt us both.#i need to lay down. im going crazy#as always i do love reading yalls thoughts in the reblogs and replies!!!#bernard dowd#dc#tim drake#timbern#timber
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I know Chloe is a fan unfavorite but I don't think she's all that bad. I definitely would have made changes to the way her character was written and how she was introduced, though. She deserved better than FOP season 10 (ļ¼Ļļ¼)
#vextriestoart#art#digital art#artists on tumblr#chloe carmichael#Chloe fop#fop#fairly odd parents#fop fanart#like ok so what if like she has really strict perfectionist parents who expect her to always be on her best behavior ->#so like she gets fairies to help her learn how to unwind and not always be so hard on herself to be mature and responsible all the time#or what if she was a sheltered kid who doesnāt know how to make friends or have fun because her parents were always moving around bc of work#idk thatās how I wouldāve done it. I agree that her introductory episode doesnāt do a good job ->#of explaining why she would need fairies#it wouldāve been nice to be shown why sheās miserable you know#but Iām rambling haha
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EEYAAAAGGGHHHH GO GO RAREPAIR MULTISHIPPING GADGET
#also p.s btw PLEASE do not be weird to me about this pleez shakes and wobbles like a sick baby deer#I got a really odd anon ask last time I posted my bulkbee doodles and it had me feeling real weird#im just a lil multishipper girly out in this big big world... of tumblr dot com...#if you dunno what multishipping is it just means you like to engage with different kinds of ships with the same characters and stuff !! ^^#hope this helps!! /gen#anywayz ermmmm this ship popped into my head and I was feelin really silly about it for a few days#btw fun fact!! did you guys know btw that blitzwing is apparently a sculptor of sorts?#it was apparently implied in the tfa comics because he like made a statue of megatron#a friend in another server told me abt that !!! twas quite a fun fact indeed tee bee eych#fruity artist guy activities#my art#transformers#maccadam#transformers animated#tfa#bulkhead#blitzwing#bumblebee#tfa bulkhead#tfa blitzwing#tfa bumblebee#bulkblitz#rarepair
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Pixie cut Falin save me!! Save me pixie cut Falin!
#dungeon meshi#delicious in dungeon#falin touden#falin dungeon meshi#farcille#itās more implied Farcille but whatever you know what Iām about#artists on tumblr#illustration#drawing#my art#fanart#Ryoko kui I owe you so much I really do!!!!#SHE LOOKS SO STUNNING WITH THE PIXIE CUTš«Øš«Øš«Øš«Øš«Øš«Øš«Ø gOING WILDOVER MISS FALIN IN THE PIXIE CUT#in my little head canon Marcille helped her cut her hair.#idk if I tag this as suggestive or not??? itās just cleavageā¦.idkļæ½ļæ½.
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ok fellas this post is really different from my other stuff so i'm putting it under the cut for people who don't care and also because i'm slightly embarrassed
ok so. is it unusual for a girl to want to have a deep voice and a flat chest and a more square face and also feel slightly jealous of men and want to sound like them and look like them
and also is it unusual to want to be all that, but also simultaneously not be very bothered very much by how you look right now or by being referred to with she/her except for sometimes when you think about it too much. because i usually don't think about it except for sometimes where i suddenly just get really sad about being a girl or i'll always have this faint feeling that i am just unhappy about it
and also is it unusual to try to ignore it and go about your life being unbothered by it even though deep down it does kinda bother you but you can't really. like. say anything to anyone because your family won't react well and neither will your friends because they'll think it's weird and uncomfortable. i feel afraid to ever feel this way because i know the people in my life won't react well to it
so like. genuine question please lmk wtf is goin on because i'm unsure if it's normal and i've felt like this for a long time and it's confusing me and i don't even know what i'm going to do with the information once i know i'm just sort of lost LMAO
#vent#ig???????????#it's not even funny (it's a little funny) how the only reason i've like. thought about this was because i am becoming#more and more jealous of actors in the musicals i watch#greaseball when i get you. when i get you#like i know it IS possible play as male characters in musicals or something as a girl if i ever wanted to#but the thing is i want to look like them and sound like them and i want to be masculine#this is me questioning my gender on my fucking cats the musical tumblr blog everybody point and laugh#might delete later depending on how embarrassed i get ARGH#I FEEL SHEEPISH#had this in my drafts for a long time but i'm caving in and posting it because i had a bad night last night thinking abt it#and i need to know. also i'm lying in bed having to get up and i don't wanna so i'm making excuses#anyway again. i'm embarrassed feel free to ignore this is so stupid#ok. being brave about this#i don't like being negative on here. idk if it's negative but it might come off that way and i don't want to be awkward#also idk how sharing it here will help. but i don't really know what else to go to#if nobody got me i know tumblr got me can i get an amen#keep adding tags to this like it's going to change anything. post the damn thing idiot#why am i adding so many tags like i'm hyping myself up in the mirror JUST POST IT
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hit random on a picrew n dressed him up :3
[inks below because they're neat]
#art#my art#artists on tumblr#digital art#oc#pink space#!! yay yippee yay :D#greatly enjoyed this! i need to put him in more skirts Truly#can imagine he stole it from his cousin for an errand run loll#/i should also draw skirts more often because i. cannot hghfsh#struggled a bit! but not as badly as i did with The Shoes#need to draw those more often too <//3 turns out drawing heels all the time does Not help when trying to draw sneakers lmao#/anywho i really love this!! just a lot of stuff going on it really tickles my brain hfhs#//also yea i should do more clothing details... ohhh i love seams so much you have no idea lol.....#they're just really good!! seams and well-defined folds my darlings <33#well. folds torment me but still hgfsh <3#//also a bit weird drawing him in other shoes lol#i know he has other shoes but also. no he dunt hgfs#//but YE i'm off n about now lol#do to my things... ooh my.. things.... [<- no idea what they could be]#will be going to bed in like an hour so let's seeee hfhs :33#toodles toooooodles!!
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i understand the frustration with āi made this gay pairing cis x trans so they can still have biological babiesā with no thought to other methods and how ppl assume thats the case when it comes to mothpool aus where mothwing is also the mother of the three, but alsoā¦. idk i kinda dont give a shit if someone wants to do that and i dont really think its inherently transphobic as long as its handled with care and respect.
what really concerns me about this debate is how some people are adamant that you cannot portray trans people having biological children in media or youre being disrespectful. and im gonna say as a nonbinary person who doesnt want children for themself- thats kinda fucking weird? like i understand that for some people, theyre trans themselves and theyre speaking from a place of dysphoria, and i absolutely get that, which is why i think the topic should be handled with nuance and diversity in trans characters, but likeā¦. guys. pregnant trans men exist irl. trans women get people pregnant irl. trans pplās ability and right to parent and have biological children are being debated irl. we get denied the opportunity to adopt as well.
in a climate like this, are we SURE we want the stance on rewrites and headcanons in the silly cat books to be āif you portray trans characters having children, especially with a gay couple, youre a transphobic freak no matter what!ā does it really matter? especially if its being done by a trans person handling the topic with nuance who has a lot of trans characters with varying perspectives?
obviously yes, remember that thats not the only way certain gay couples can have kids, remember that not every trans person is fully comfortable with it and keep that in mind, remember that surrogacy and adoption are also perfectly valid ways to give fan babies- but remember that there are OPTIONS. not that you need to condemn the idea of transgender parents in the first place unless they fit the very specific criteria of āproper transgender representationā and anything that dares deviate from that is proof the op is a transphobic monster (bonus points if theyre a trans creator bc i mostly see trans people getting shit for this and it kinda pisses me off. although idm if cis people do it either as long as theyre handling it with respect)
#and this isnt getting into how trans mothwing outside of mothpool is a really good way to read her character#sorry. remembered the shit bonefall got despite being trans as well and got annoyed#that especially annoys me bc hes got plenty of surrogacies but the second hed touch a trans pregnancy#āāno you cant do that!!! you freak!!! obviously you only see trans people as a loophole for gays to have babies!!!āā#also my gf and i were talking and obviously take this with a grain of salt bc this is our experience#butā¦. i think a lot of the ppl saying thisā¦ā¦. havent really talked to trans women?#dude some of the ones i know LOVE the idea of getting people pregnant#did you know trans women have sex? did you know trans people in general have sex?? did you know trans people irl wanna start families?#did you know that? did you? or do you black out at the idea of a trans woman being anything but strictly pure and nonsexual#and OBVIOUSLY this is not every trans woman. some do have dysphoria around the idea#but im genuinely starting to wonder how these people act around irl transgender parents#whether they had kids before or after coming out#bc ngl. the attitude that thinking about this makes you a transphobic pervert?#directed at trans people making content for themselves?#im starting to think you all just dont want us to reproduce. if we reproduce we arent āāgoodāā trans people#because a āārealāā man wouldnt carry a child. a āārealāā woman would carry the child. and god forbid the gays even THINK about reproducing#and being around children!#if we have children then weāre doing things that might make cishets look at us and declare weāre not perfect#weāve proved weāre not just identical to cis ppl!! (and therefore deserving of respect!)#idk. i think this was mostly a case of tumblr going āāoh someone said no to this so lets push this to an unhealthy extreme!!āā#and i cant help but notice nobody really brings up nonbinary parents at all in this discussion#not that we have it āābetterāā or anything for that but yknow. are we supposed to swear it off?#is the idea of us having kids inconcievable? or worseā¦. does it mean we āāpicked a side?āā#so its not even worth getting mad at a pregnant nb person bc āāwell thats a woman so who caresāāb#HMMMMM.#ohhhh i bet they also get mad if you make transfem pregnancy possible too. no winning#idk really think about it when you go āāyou can NEVER EVER portray a trans person starting a family. bc REAL trans people would never.āā#ohhh you probably get mad when trans ppl dont get surgery for one reason or another dontcha#whether we want to or its not in the cards for us for whatever reason like cost and such#(while also getting mad if we do bc we cannot win in this no matter what)
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mommm white people on tumblr are misconstruing my posts again despite the post being entirely about how important wording is + how i donāt feel comfortable posting large statements when i havenāt fully processed them yet.
#if you want to put me on a blocklist for loving netanyahu you can! i donāt! and no matter how many times i get told i do#i still donāt!#i literally said i hope his balls get cut off IN THAT POST#i donāt know how that read as unclear.#perhaps there are no hidden genocidal messages behind the wording of my tumblr posts - who knows!#when i said i cared about every single civilian living in that land i meant it. if you decide that i actually donāt thatās not my problem#if you somehow took my words and decided that what i really meant is that iām a government bootlicker who loves murder#you can do that all you want. it wonāt make it true and it wonāt help save any lives#i was in ramallah and jerusalem six months ago. have you gone?#if the answer is no maybe think about that for a second#moreover if youāre viewing this from a purely racial or religious framework you have no idea how to navigate this subject#i donāt view israel and palestine through which government i want to back. why the fuck would i do that#palestinians and jews and everyone else in that land is who i care about. i care about gazans#if thatās not enough of āa sideā for you i donāt really think thereās much of a conversation to be had.#do you think i wake up every day NOT thinking about gaza? do you think i wouldnāt feel nauseous every second of every day because of gaza?#do you think that within everything iām saying that the most logical conclusion would be to post all of my thoughts on tumblr?#because if you think any of that weāre not going to have a productive conversation. i donāt take kindly to being told my own emotions
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Your latest Swanatello comic hit me like a truckā¦. That bit about forgetting and crying and being useless? The way Donnie feels he used to me smart but isnāt anymore? THATāS ME. I went from being physically and mentally able to disabled overnight (literally, went to sleep one day, couldnāt wake up the next day, they still donāt know what caused it). Memory problems, comprehension and cognitive problems (I could not write my own name), unable to physically get out of bedā¦. Iāve gotten a lot better, but your comic just summed up those feelings of frustration and guilt PERFECTLY. It was like looking in a turtle shaped mirror. The whole thing is like looking in a turtle shaped mirrorā¦. Swanatello is kind of a brilliant disability allegory actuallyā¦ Donnie is trapped by circumstances he didnāt choose, his body and mind and abilities are affectedā¦. <3
It makes me really happy to know that this story resonates with people and can speak to other peoples' experiences with memory loss/cognitive disability/etc. I will keep on doing my best with it and I appreciate y'all's support ; w ;
#makes me... happy#coz its so good to see yourself in media you know? even if its just. like. a silly tumblr au. idk#it just makes me happy to think i might be doing that for some people and helping in some small way#i really like writing swanatellos story and am absolutely touched by everyones interest thus far#donnies family loves him and are gonna continue to love him no matter what#whether hes 'useful' or not#and no matter what his future or recovery may or may not look like#coz i think thats important#asks#anon#systemsentry#swanatello asks
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Hi Pia
Feel free to ignore if this is unwelcome, but have you ever thought about publishing traditionally to sublimate your income and draw in new readers? I know you've self published two books already and that you didn't feel like they did very well, but maybe the experience would be different if someone else was in charge of marketing and all the other business stuff?
Obviously everyone's experience is different but as an author myself who's published both trad and self, traditional publishing has been a completely different experience and has allowed me to focus more on writing because I'm not the one responsible for advertising/marketing/financing anymore.
There are a ton of literary agents nowadays that want to represent diverse and lgbtqia+ fiction, some of them even in Australia.
Websites like Reedsy, AgentQuery and Jerichowriters have extensive directories to find literary agents.
(This is lengthy folks so I'm putting the other two parts (and my response) under a read more! Also putting it under a read more so the anon can skip my response since it's very 'here's all the reasons I can't do this' and they just might not want to read that, lmao)
(continued -> )
Trad publishing houses have better resources for marketing and helping authors get more attention than any self publishing website could.
Obviously most authors, unless they're really prolific, don't get a huge advance (the average is between $1000 - $5000) but getting your foot in the door or on the traditional publishing "ladder' so to speak can have a huge benefit for your serials. Because it gives you more exposure. Plus it's in the agent's best interest to find a publishing house that accepts stories that contain darker themes and negotiate the best deal for you.
For some reason places like Amazon and the like accept and keep up more "dark" books that are traditionally published than they do with self pub ones. Maybe because they have more respect or leniency for publishing houses? I have no idea. But you could use this to your advantage. I think I remember you mentioning that writing novels felt quite isolating to you? But you already have 2 completed novels (3 if you count the fae one) that you could potentially revisit or rewrite to your liking and get them represented by agents.
You already have a loyal readership and that's very attractive to trad pub houses and agents.
As well as trad publishing, you could also make s simple website that doesn't require much maintenance. It could be just a landing page that says something about you and then has links to your tumblr and patreon where you're more active. That way you increase the chances of getting your serials found by additional readers and also come across looking more "professional". Not that you're not professional now. You are and I admire you greatly, but the unfortunate reality is a lot of people still judge by appearances and some will be more drawn to an author's website than a tumblr page, at least at first. So I think having a simple landing page would open up another door for you to benefit from.
Trad publishing is work but definitely not as much as self publishing, and you can continue on with your serials. Getting an agent can be time consuming but I personally believe the pros outweigh the cons and I also believe that your stories would be a huge treasure to the growing lgbtqia+ market. Seriously there needs to be more!
These are just suggestions and thoughts and like I said before, feel free to ignore. But I know you've mentioned wanting to grow your career in the past and I genuinely believe you can do so with some of these pathways.
~
Okay, my response. Posting this because firstly I think the suggestions could work very well for other authors reading this! And I hope they take the advice to note, and secondly because I haven't talked about this for a hot minute so let's talk about it again.
So the TL;DR is yes I have considered traditional publishing. I have actually been traditionally published in short stories, poetry, and also had my art published on covers and re: interior illustrations. But my Fae Tales works got soundly rejected when I sent them to publishing houses that were doing open calls for that sort of material. I've never heard back from an agent and I never expect to, heh.
~
Now for a bit more detail
I have been traditionally published before (it's how I got my writing out there long before I ever wrote serials), and yes, I have approached publishers with my writing since then. In fact Tradewinds was written for the traditional publishing market, and it got soundly rejected, and then shelved. The reasons it was rejected ran the gamut from 'I don't like that these fae eat humans no one is going to relate to these people' (while the editor then went on to publish vampire books idk) to 'There's too much worldbuilding you can't expect readers to keep up with this' to 'Your stories are too long, no one wants to read characters talking all the time.'
Meanwhile in my online serials I was getting feedback like 'my favourite chapters are the ones where the characters just sit in a room and talk' lol.
The traditional publishing world is also not quite as utopian for most authors as you make it seem. I'm friends with a lot of authors who are traditionally published because that's the world I came from, and unless they're solely in KU and doing generic rapid release formula romances, none of them are making that much money. Certainly not enough to live off. It may have been that you were very fortunate, anon, but I know hundreds more traditionally published authors that left trad pub to make money, and I know about 5 in trad pub personally who are making enough to live off of.
Only one of those is really writing what she truly loves to write, and even then, publishing houses have refused to commit to her entire fantasy series (and she's regularly in 'Top 10/20 Women Fantasy Authors in the World' lists) and forced her to finish the series prematurely. Something I never ever have to worry about in self pub.
The reality is that in trad pub these days, you're still in charge of most of your marketing unless you're one of the big earners for the publishing house. In fact I'd be expected to keep even more of a social media and marketing presence than I do now. I don't do almost any of the things you're supposed to do as an author in marketing to be appealing. I don't have a Facebook author account. I don't have an Instagram author account. I don't maintain or regularly send out newsletters (which automatically puts me in the like 0.05% of authors who make money doing this lmao).
I don't know if you ever have looked that closely into what m/m publishing houses expect from most of their authors, but the newsletter swaps, cover releases, review circuits, interview circuits and more are fucking grueling. We're expected to be responsible for our advertising and our marketing to a fairly massive degree. Some traditionally published in m/m still have to pay for their release blitzes out of pocket. These publishing houses, by and large, do not offer advances. You say most authors don't get large advances. I don't think most authors in this arena get offered advances at all unless they're somehow miraculously acquired by a Big 4.
We're expected to have an already established social media presence because of that (that's why it's so appealing to publishers that we have social media presences already, anon, so we can market, they can save money, and we still see only a minimal cut from the royalties).
And you still have to focus on your finances, because publishing houses like Dreamspinner straight up didn't pay a whole bunch of authors for so long they destroyed careers. They still haven't paid some of their authors. And they're still running a business and people still buy their books.
Trad publishing houses have better resources for marketing and helping authors get more attention than any self publishing website could.
This is true if a) they're a big publishing house and not an indie publisher of which most LGBTQIA+ publishing houses are and b) they're willing to use them on you.
The authors that make the most money get the most resources. If they believe you're going to earn back your advance and move thousands or tens of thousands of units per book, then yes, you will get those resources.
I have been told so many times now - even from friends who run publishing houses, including one who works at HarperCollins - that my work will never be mainstream enough to have broad appeal. They literally told me not to keep trying re: trad pub, because that was my dream for a long time. These folks have given me rock solid advice in the past, it's one of the reasons I'm doing so well now via Patreon + Ream. But they were like (paraphrasing) 'you don't write 60-80k romances and you don't want to and that's not your strength anyway, you're multi-genre which makes you hard to market, you write psychological and literary trauma recovery which is hard to market, you write character studies which are hard to market, publishing houses often don't commit to series anymore if the first two don't move units and if they pulled the plug you'd be contractually obliged to never finish that series until your contract was up.' I could go on, but it was like yeah...actually. Fair.
For some reason places like Amazon and the like accept and keep up more "dark" books that are traditionally published than they do with self pub ones. Maybe because they have more respect or leniency for publishing houses?
They do, but most publishing houses want very formulaic dark romance which is not what I write.
I have a 300k omegaverse slowburn that still hasn't had any penetrative sex in it, anon. Publishing houses don't want that. They don't expect anyone will wait 4 full length novels to get to literally a single penetrative sex scene.
But you already have 2 completed novels (3 if you count the fae one) that you could potentially revisit or rewrite to your liking and get them represented by agents.
If I rewrote them to my liking, trad pub wouldn't want them. They'd be too long! I think agents etc. take one look at me and go 'oh god, no thank you!' I'm not an easy sell, by any means.
Plus I'm very e.e about all of that with the knowledge that they then give me only about 10-15% of the royalties on the sales, vs. self-pub where I get around 70%, or subscription where I around 80% of it. When someone subscribes to me, they don't have to worry about 85-90% of their subscription fee going to a publishing house. I don't have to think about how many thousands and thousands of books I'd have to sell to make the same amount that I do now via subscription.
As well as trad publishing, you could also make s simple website that doesn't require much maintenance.
If it was that simple, I'd be doing it. I don't mean this in a facetious way, I mean it in a: I've made a lot of websites, in fact I run one at the moment not connected to my writing (I've been running it for so long it's now in its 20s and can probably has a driver's license). I find it so tedious that I barely remember to check in on it. But forgetting about it means there's always maintenance to keep up with when I get back to it.
Running websites is simpler than it used to be, but it's still not simple. There's hosting and hosting costs, there's server changes, there's back-end maintenance etc. I'm considering it for down the track, but there's a reason I decided to go the route of Patreon over my own site. There are authors (like Christopher Hopper) who actually do subscription through their own domain, but it's a lot of work.
Even placeholder sites are still work. They need updating, details change, story titles changing etc. Maintaining my Patreon + Ream About pages is enough, they're always both a little out of date, lol.
Not that you're not professional now.
Oh no, I mean from a 'traditional publisher looking at me to see what kind of candidate I am' I'm really not though. Like I said, I don't have the newsletter (100 subscribers who get one newsletter a year is not really a newsletter), I don't have the Facebook/Tiktok/Insta/Twitter/Bluesky/Threads accounts, etc. I write multi-genre across multiple steam levels, and I'm allergic to writing serials shorter than 150k. One of my best performing original serials was an 800k contemporary story with no sex in it but a lot of BDSM. It can't be marketed as clean or sweet, it's not high steam, an entire chapter is 'boy saves snail from rain.' Also he was cruel to animals, so not exactly what I'd call a sympathetic main.
And yet that story did so well for me via Patreon + Ream, because people want the kinds of stories that publishing houses generally don't want and I happen to be writing them.
Trad publishing is work but definitely not as much as self publishing, and you can continue on with your serials. Getting an agent can be time consuming but I personally believe the pros outweigh the cons and I also believe that your stories would be a huge treasure to the growing lgbtqia+ market. Seriously there needs to be more!
Anon I just literally do not believe an agent would want to represent me. I have 0% belief in that. Not from a self-deprecating angle but from a 'I am not a good bet for the trad market' perspective. From a 'I have so many friends who are trad pubbed authors who stare at me like I'm insane for writing serials as long as I do' perspective. From a 'professionals in the industry have told me it's amazing I'm doing so well in serials because there's no way they'd take a risk on what I'm doing' perspective. From a 'just because it's queer and diverse doesn't mean it hits literally any other thing a trad pub is looking for' perspective. I've been doing this for 10 years. There are agents who represent work similar to mine who know what I'm doing and wouldn't touch me with a ten foot pole. They're not missing out on a trick, they know I'm not broad appeal, and they're right.
Also the only way I'd have the energy to manage trad pub is by quitting serials. And honestly, I never found trad pub all that much fun while I was doing it for non-novel stuff. It was fine, and it is nice to have my stuff out there, but it was a ton of admin and a lot of going back and forth between people who really only care about marketing a product, and that's great and what they excel at! But I'm too disabled to turn this job into something crushing just to potentially make more money, I'd rather just quit and go back onto a full Disability Pension. I can't see any way I still get to write the stories I want to write, in the way that I write them, and be remotely appealing to a single reputable trad pub or agent.
Also *gestures to everything in this article*
#asks and answers#pia on writing#pia on publishing#i appreciate your thoughts anon#and i'm so happy it's working out well for you#and that you're able to live off what you're doing#you are one of the rare outliers in the world of publishing#and i truly wish you all the success in the world#i do think a lot of your advice will go to help a lot of writers who sometimes check in#at my tumblr#but yeah no i don't even write that much 'dark' stuff in the classic sense#of what trad pub wants#right now the publishing world that i'm adjacent to#seems to view me as some kind of oddity#'i don't know how he's making an income off all this stuff that we know would never work for us'#'how odd and strange'#'best leave him alone'#most authors are thankfully not doing what i'm doing#in which case yes they should absolutely consider agent representation#and looking into trad pub#unfortunately i'm not like a CS Pacat#even though she's a role model for me#and when i tried to write for the more traditional market#which was perth shifters#i honestly really struggled
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their dinamic is messy but caring but idfa about you all at same time it makes me want to explode i want to see more of them siu pls
#myart#tower of god#kami no tou#karaka#wangnan#wangnan ja#fanart#illustration#artists on tumblr#wheres my dad he was supposed pick me up 40 minutes ago IM STARVING !!???#living in a big city is shit cos theres traffic jam wherever you go i hate cities#anyway i came up with an idea for a one shot i hope ill be able to put my ideas properly and not mess up things#but its not a complrx story so itll be fine#last night i was daydreaming with me explaining my first bug ass story it truly was my one piece not other story was that complex#my dad just called me he will pick me up in anpther 30-40 minutes HELP GOD NOOOOO im actually starvjng and uuum theres a cafeteria next to#me but that brand is expensive as fuck it is good but really expensive and aint way i will spend that much money#stay tuned if you want to know how my journey to feed myself ends like#i love talking as if it were actual people expecting what i gotta say no single mf is fan mine#i love wangnan so much i could kms#hello its me from the future. so i eat lne of the most silly but yummy food ever#bought the 1st vinland saga volume nad watched look back ALL IN THE SAME DAY how cool is that mmm??????? i love living (just for today)#i miss having a job because id have a weekly income and spend half of it but recover next week and yarayara I MISS HAVING INFINITE MONEY
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final bday board!! thank you everyone !! i really liked checking in throughout the day and smiling at all the doodles, thank you thank you <3
#kiki speaks#i also have screencaps of each individual doodle saved dw i just zoomed out for the overall picture#i really like being able to tell where ppl know me from based on what they drew#namely: oberon from twitter oomfs#mokasips vtuber if ppl met me thru streaming#arknights character from tumblr#i feel so very special. all my little blorbos smiles big and wide#thank you!! im really happy i decided to return to doing fandom stuff!!!#im very shy and self conscious and for a while i felt like i shouldnt pour my time into stuff that wouldnt help me get a job bc it scared m#but i love writing and drawing and thinking about little blorbos again#have a wonderful night!!!
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