#which is now dern

[monarchberrysblog]

ORAL FIXATION !!

₊˚ʚ 💉 ₊˚✧ﾟ. sweet tooth . 🦷🍨

☆ miguel o’hara x fem! reader ☆

☆ summary: a simple consult with the oral hygienist.

☆ content warning: cunnilingus, oral fixation, throat fucking, throat bulge (not mentioned but implied), choking, cum (lots, lots of cum), semi-voyeuristic behavior, latex glove kink (?), light degradation, and hair pulling.

☆ word count: 837 words

☆ author’s notes: yeah… I went to the dentist. my sick and twisted brain got to work after the consultation.

"Good girl."

".!"

Sticky as tree sap outside the bumpy bark, your saliva dripped down to the exam room's smooth grey wooden floors. A thin coating of precum and spit glistened from your chin down to your chest. A satisfied hum from the back of your throat resonates a low, lively vibration near the back of your tongue. Your knees ached from the textured wooden floor while your hands grasped his seat's sides, nails digging into the cushion.

Red knees and indented skin showed your shame. It created a sight of illusion. You only came in for a consultation, but the drool and precum in between your cleavage said otherwise. The red wine color tint on your lips contrasted your white teeth, but the color clashed so well with Miguel’s mauve tip.

"You said your jaw was hurting? Doesn't look like it now." He gently thrusts a bit of his length into your mouth, earning a gurgle-like moan.

"Shhh, I'll make it fit." Your eyes widen to the size of charger plates used during dinner time at an Olive Garden.

The bulging, misty look greets Miguel, but within your pupils, with a mere glance, anyone could have missed it.

The space is dominantly characterized by a wavering implication of ardor, which shows the intoxication behind the smudged pencil eyeliner and dilated eyes. Miguel’s gloved fingers weave into your hair, securing a hold at the back of your head. The lilac latex in his hands immediately clings to the rubber, creating more uncomfortable hair tugs. Some tugs were enough to catch a breather without his dick in your mouth.

The sight of precum decorating your lips like lipgloss churned. Then, an idea came to him, unwarranted.

The palm of his hand cups your chin, his fingers and thumb digging into the plush of your cheeks. "Open up." His words were vile, like a plague, but enticing to pursue immodest actions.

Through the grasps between his fingers and thumb, you nod, his cock near your cum-covered lips. He wears a dern expression when he sees you nod as he removes his hand from your hair and works his belt out of the belt loops of his pants instead. You open up barely enough to let the mushroom-like tip in between your lips and teeth, grazing the sensitive, taut skin. "A little more, querida."

The angry aching around your wisdom teeth knawed, a blade twisting deep into your gums, the blade's tip twirling at your nerves like cooked noodles gathered around a fork. While attempting to open, he thrusts his hips, his length choking you.

His happy trail tickles the tip of your nose, his fingers immediately weaving into your hair and keeping you there. He slowly pulls out but pulls you away from his happy trail, enough to give you more air to breathe. But the sensation of his now irritated tip found its way back in. "Let me know when you can't breathe." The muffled, wet gurgles filled the room.

The gentle humping against your throat overstimulated, but feeling lathered against the back of your throat was enough implication of what was going to happen. Miguel thrusts himself back in and doesn't allow any room for you to back down.

"Take it, sweetie." He urges, but the subtle drip of his precum landing on the floor with a 'plop' finally pushes the limit. You gurgle your words, but his length makes them inaudible. The words merge into vibrations and gnaw at the sensitive tip.

Despite him being in an uncomfortable position, his hands grasp your throat and gently squeeze your throat.

The soft thrusts evolved into harsher ones, and your nose got tickled by the sensation of his pubic hair tickling you. His fingers probed at your throat, his latex fingers feeling around until he seized and squeezed firmly. You gurgled and could feel your gag reflexes kick in. The mere panic in your eyes with your tears created a titillating sight.

Your hand continued to pat his thigh, an indirect beg for him to go easy on you.

But it only encouraged him to push down more, feeding you more nearly. "Stop it." He snaps, his hand grasping onto your wrist and pinning your hand down on the chair. "You can handle it."

"Stop squirming..." He groans and pushes himself, enough to feel the back of your throat. The soft thrusts evolved into rapid ones, feeling the mushroom-like tip bullying its way down, begging to be enveloped by your throat's warm, velvety walls.

The harsh, precise motions became sloppy, spit leaving puddles on the floor, his boxers, and chair. His low groans grew more audible, but he kept his mouth shut. He lets go of your throat and hair and seizes his movements. The warm fluid coats your aching throat, allowing it to work as aloe vera against irritated skin. The sensation overflowed, leaking out of your mouth. He pulls out his softening dick and cups your chin gently. His thumb wiped away your spit and his cum. "Doesn't seem like anything is hurting anymore."

Tag List: @cherrysxuya @awkward-platypus @pheebslu @bbb1rd

[pidges-lost-robot]

Redrawing of the characters with different outfit ideas

Drawn on this scene:

This is an au of if their outfits had not been so obviously the colour of their lions and if they’d eventually transitioning to something that fits more with their lions colour palette

I decided to have Keith be a lot more practical for living out in hot weather with a lot lighter clothing cause I don’t think he can be bothered with heatstroke (and yes Lance makes a wide variety of jokes from ‘glad we’ve got amelia earhart onside’ to ‘didn’t realise we needed help escaping from an Indiana Jones character’ or ‘hey what National Park were you a ranger at’ and finally ‘I think Laura Dern wants her outfit back’

Pidge I wanted to go for a more teal which is more in keeping with her brother’s palette but as @seypia pointed out her brother actually at some point wears in the flashback so that’s what I tried to go for

I’m having the og blue of Lance’s shirt be a more reddish purple, where its clearly pointing towards a more Keith colour like he’s trying to peacock as, rather than dressing more as himself

And Hunk covering up his more prominent yellow colour in his palette with a more violet colour, a much softer colour that would blend more into the background of the show as he’s unsure about this whole idea

I may do one of these in the shack with Shiro’s outfit change but this is what I have for now

(I did not redraw the bike I tried then lost the will with it xD)

[elizabeth-mitchells]

feeling bored so... what do you think an adult laura lee would be like? (and who would you cast to play her?)

OH I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED

literally just the other day i was looking back on some of the answers people gave me when i asked who would they cast as adult laura lee. including: sarah michelle gellar, diane krueger, laura dern, kristen bell, kirsten dunst... BUT the absolute #1 winner in my heart is 100% Elizabeth Mitchell. i mean look at her. the laura lee's style dress and the lottie's cult's colors...

now what would adult laura lee be like...

well i'm happy to consider all the options! i've mentioned before that it could go in very different ways if she had survived. after the rescue she could've 1. entered extreme denial about all she did and turned more obsessively religious to make up for it 2. stayed obsessively religious but for the wilderness (and lottie) which she never let go of 3. ✨ a middle ground ✨ or more!

personally, realistically, i think the middle ground would be something like... she wouldn't completely let go of her faith (catholic, christian, whatever) because it was so important to her and key to her character, but it would definitely change. her god abandoned them in the wilderness and let them do all those unforgivable things... but i think her post-rescue healing process would center around making peace with that and finding her middle ground. i can picture her joining one of those churches that are like liberal and very pro-lgbt and stuff. BUT i'm so sure she would never completely let go of their weird wilderness religion and her belief that lottie was touched by the holy spirit, that she had gift, that she was something like a saint

a lot of people love to paint laura lee as a boring character, bible thumping, goody two shoes, innocent and pure, but that goes against so many things we see from her. standing up against figures of authority and even controlling the group (making them pray, standing up against coach, jackie, nat, coach again, making them pray again, making fun of nat and travis and travis again) she had the balls to try to exorcise lottie and to fly a plane. do you know what she would be like as an adult after she'd had to go through all the brutal things they did to survive in the wilderness??

i think she obviously wouldn't lose her best traits. i think she would stay sweet and she would be even kinder to people because she knows how difficult it is to survive and she would love to help others (and fight anyone that tried to make other people's lives more difficult than they need to be) but she's stay brave, stubborn, true to her values and beliefs, and very much learn to stand up for herself and never let anyone laugh at her expense again

also she would be a lesbian. she would 100% be a lesbian

(she's married to lottie)

(she's her right hand woman managing the not-a-cult and she's at once nicer and more approachable but also more strict than sexy prophet lottie)

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

medialog june 2k24

watched

wordplay - rewatched this documentary about crosswords and particularly about the annual crossword tournament put on by will shortz while waiting for the anesthesia from my wisdom tooth extraction to wear off and found it about as charming as i remembered... i love a doc about a subculture made up of endearing nerds. i first saw it when it came out and on revisit it also has some intensely 2004 vibes - in particular jon stewart shows up as one of their crossword-fans talking heads and it really brought home for me how influential he was on the development of internet tone (like to this day the reason so many people on reddit sound Like That is because they're trying to be jon stewart and failing...)

the bourne ultimatum - movie go zoom zoom! still not convinced matt damon can act

artists and models - i had never seen a dean martin/jerry lewis film before and i don't really want to again but i'm glad i saw this one (this is how i feel about the two (2) wes anderson movies i've seen, and also pulp fiction & tarantino). some great colors & costumes, a plot that goes surprisingly bonkers in a final third turn that reminds you it was the cold war (between that and all the stuff about comics & violence this one also functions as a real time capsule), and (my main reason for watching) shirley maclaine the love of my life is so adorable and funny as a daffy sweetheart in a role that really lets her (a former dancer) show off her gift for physical comedy.

the secret garden - the cast in this movie is so good, including the children in the starring roles, and while it doesn't even attempt to do anything with the book's deranged relationship with things like the british empire and the concept of disability, watching it really did bring me back to why the book has been so beloved - the fantasy at its heart is ultimately about hard humble work paying off and about friends teaching each other to be nicer, which are i think deeply appealing narratives for children in a way that people sometimes forget. it's so funny that part of what cures mary and colin of their bad personalities is meeting another unhappy rich child for the very first time!

humanist vampire seeking consenting suicidal person - this was slight but sweet, a darkly funny romcom with some style and heart. also i had never seen a french-canadian movie before i don't think and it was a fun surprise to hear them talking like "frenchfrenchfrenchfrenchRRRRfrenchfrenchRRRR." not an accent with which i have much familiarity!

jurassic park - my somewhat inexplicable, even to me, aversion to raiders of the lost ark had me avoiding action spielberg for basically my whole life but i gave this a shot thinking maybe i would appreciate it if not enjoy it and was absolutely GLUED to the screen from about five minutes in. i understand why other directors are like that about spielberg now, and also what jj abrams is trying to do all the time and failing because he doesn't understand how it actually works. this is like the most famous movie in the world basically and i've seen so many clips from it over the years and yet even waiting for them and expecting them to come i was ON THE EDGE OF MY SEAT! like WOW! truly a movie that feels like a theme park ride more than any other i've seen except maybe fury road. anyway as you statistically speaking probably already know this movie absolutely rocks, and not just for (1) laura dern and (2) jeff goldblum with his tits out.

citizen kane - spent the last weekend in june at two different marches & closed it out sunday night with a screening of the movie that made me bisexual <3 one day i'll figure out a way to articulate how this movie did what it did to me but for now i will just say that it is great and its reputation is deserved and orson welles is one of the most entertaining screen presences of all time and it looks so cool and beautiful all the way through and it is so so so so gay

interview with a vampire season 2 - my opinion on this is at this point well established lol finally some good fucking food!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

read

megan abbott, the turnout - this & the zadie smith book are further steps in me catching up with authors i lost track of during some bad reading years! when i heard that megan abbott was coming out with a book about sisters who run a ballet school i was like LOL because that's like the peak ultimate megan abbott premise (girls and the nastiness of both feelings and bodies and ambition and hunger and an atmosphere of nightmares and filth and the insane dynamics of a tightly knit but deeply dysfunctional world, all to the nth power), and guess what as a megan abbott fan i loved it :) all the bad reviews on goodreads for this are like "why is this book so gross? why is she sexualizing the nutracker? there were scenes in this book that made me feel dirty reading them. way too much focus on the wet leotard crotches of little girls" and i was sickos dot jpg the whole time. but actually i think the reason that this wound up being my favorite abbott since dare me is that at its core it's a book about a woman with an unbelievably fucked up childhood due to her incredibly fucked up dead parents and the suspense that gives the book its tension and its form is less about what's going to happen with the plot and more about whether she is at any point going to put it together that the things that happened to her when she was young were actually bad; the further the book goes, the more deeply you understand the walls of denial and distortion around her entire life. it rules.

david j. skaal, something in the blood: the untold story of bram stoker, the man who wrote dracula - as previously mentioned, i have some real qualms with some of his dracula readings, but overall i found this an addictively pleasurable tome - 600 pages and he kept them turning the whole time. i love a biography that starts off with some background on medieval ireland, you know? skaal is a good writer with an engaging but learned style, and the book is clearly both exhaustively researched and intended for popular audiences (albeit popular audiences who have definitely read dracula, but, i mean, who else is reading 600 pages about this guy?); reading it often feels something like having a drink with a professor who knows his stuff and is NOT afraid to gossip. dracula qualms aside i may investigate some of his other books, particularly his book on dracula screen adaptations, since i'm curious about those but don't necessarily want to, like, watch most of them, lol

bonnie jo campbell, the waters - book club book that was objectively certainly not terrible and which had some things i did like or appreciate, like an 11 year old girl obsessed with math (representation matters...) but which i found just about the most boring thing i have read in my life. like i would definitely say campbell is a better writer than, say, taylor jenkins reid (to name another book club book) or whatsherface who wrote the book of fried green tomatoes which we also read las year... but i found those books much more aggravating but also easier to get through than this book, which really requires you to have some level investment in, like, the natural world of rural michigan, but mostly made me feel so glad i don't live in a small town where all the men have guns.

zadie smith, swing time - it's funny because when i started this i was spending a lot of time thinking about how maybe plot and structure have become underrated, but then this was like a very long book written in the style of someone just kind of talking at you about their life, with plot events technically happening but never feeling like the driving force of the book, and i was totally riveted, which was a good reminder that you can get away with anything if you're a genius! smith is just such a keen observer of people and how they operate, and so allergic to relying on any kind of obvious assumptions about the relationships between demographics & personality or beliefs, even as demographic realities are such a key part of the fabric of the book... i was a little worried i would be disappointed by the fact that she abandoned the modernist-leaning experimentation of NW for a more straightforward, even chatty, style, but "you can get away with it if you're a genius" applies to that too. this book is also an absolute masterclass in the universal through the specific - i cannot emphasize how much literally not one thing the protagonist experiences has ever happened to me, how much our lives and backgrounds and personalities overlap not at all, and yet constantly i found myself aching with resonance over things like "it's so true that's what it's like when you have a mom" or "that really is what it feels like when you are young and sort of smart but also sort of stupid" (which if i were to define it briefly is i think more or less what the book is about).

listened

charli xcx, brat - i remain after all these years a true romance truther and continue unfairly to measure all her subsequent work, much of which is frankly too sophisticated and experimental for my listening taste even if i recognize she's Doing Something, but this album sounds great and has some bops. as a straight-through listen it was too rich for my blood, but i find myself enjoying the songs on shuffle mixed in with whatever else i've been into more than i would have expected from that first exposure, and also 360 has been stuck in my head more waking hours than not for like a month and a half now and i'm still not sick of it (although i think my favorite song on the album is 365, and not just because i think it's really funny that she ended the album with "the opening track coming out of the bathroom after doing cocaine"). plus as someone who HAS been listening to charli since whenever the video for "you're the one" dropped it is nice to see The Culture finally rally around her even if i remain a little puzzled over why now, the all-star remixes getting rolled out have been pretty delightful (LORDE!!!!!!!!), and it's nice to have the zeitgeist coalesce for a moment over something i too think is fun (especially since the other thing gay people love this summer is chappell roan on whom i have yet to be converted sorry to everyone i'm sincerely glad you're having a good time)

[corpsepng]

I don’t have a “Roman empire”. I have a “Jurassic park arm”. As in, a memory of media so age inappropriate from early childhood that it set the foundation for the rest of life to build upon (good or bad).

For context, Jurassic park arm refers to the 6 seconds in the film Jurassic Park in which Laura Dern (running from velociraptors) encounters Samuel L Jackson’s severed arm.

At 6 years old, it wasn’t his characters death that shocked me (watching that guy get chomped on the toilet was hilarious) it was the gore of a severed limb divorced from a body that haunted me. I realized bodies could fall apart, and that all people are just meat. And when we die, we’re still meat. I really compartmentalized that shit at 6. Anyway. That seed planted, and now we’re here lol

So what’s everyone else’s Jurassic park arms?

[eienias20]

Oban Star Racers

I remember when this show first aired on Jetix, I was way young at the time but I thought the trailers looked cool and I wanted to watch it. I saw episodes here and there, several moments really stood out to me but I didn't see the show in full cause it aired around my curfew back then. At the very least I know I saw the final episode.

Somehow despite such an incomplete viewing, the show stuck with me and I wanted to watch it again. I picked up the 15th anniversary Bluray some time back and just watched the whole show across 4 days last week, it was fantastic.

Immediately what I think about it is the alien and ship design cause dern there were some awesome designs in the show. The Crog Trident has lived in my head rent free since I first saw the show. Elements of it influenced the little comics I drew for fun.

Suffice it to say I think the show is fantastic, a lot of fun and well worth watching. I'd recommend it easily! I still need to look at all the behind the scenes features but I wanted to shout out my 3 favorite episodes.

Silent Like Spirit - the whole thing

Ominous Like O - for the confrontation that was building since the first episode

Canaletto's Revenge - which features the final race that is a really great conclusion

Now that I've relived this great nostalgia trip, next old anime on my list to track down and watch is IGPX which funny enough I looked it up to find they are planning to release a bluray of that this year XD

[backup-baby-backup]

List of Speak Now TV-related Easter eggs Taylor has dropped recently (just drop it already ffs)

NB: I'm only including hints that are obvious and don't require mental gymnastics. Your mileage might vary, of course.

27 February 2020: The Man music video is released, with the iconic graffitied wall showing Speak Now coming after Red.

26 October 2020: Taylor posts this TikTok.

I really think this is a really obvious hint, but nobody ever seems to talk about it... anyways notice how the colours of the garments she points at go purple > blue > green > black?

9 November 2021: Red (Taylor's Version) signed CDs go on sale. On her website, the price $20.10 is written in purple.

12 November 2021: "Red is about to be mine again, but it has always been ours."

13 December 2021: Taylor turns 32. Her AMA award for Speak Now can be seen in this photo she posts.

20 January 2021: Taylor is named 2022 Record Store Day Ambassador. The logo uses purple text and we lose our minds.

5 May 2022: Taylor Nation drops Speak Now (and 1989) merch for some reason.

Apparently, this was to show the Speak Now trademark was still being used, but I'm still putting it here.

21 October 2022: Anti-Hero music video released.

The koi fish guitar from the Speak Now World Tour makes an appearance.

Also, in the official YouTube video for the TSAntiHeroChallenge thing, she wears the purple dress from the Speak Now tour.

25 October 2022: Bejeweled music video released.

This day is the 12th anniversary of Speak Now.

Enchanted plays at the beginning.

Laura Dern says "Speak not".

Taylor presses the 3 button in the elevator, which is coloured purple.

The 13 button and the 13th indicator light (representing the album after Midnights) are also purple.

Taylor's hairpin says "SN".

Koi fish appears in the windows of the castle.

Long Live plays at the end.

1 November 2022: "I'm enchanted to announce my next tour..."

27 January 2023: Lavender Haze music video released.

The koi fish appears again.

29 January 2023: The official Taylor Swift 2024 calendar is shown on the publisher's website. It features photos from the Speak Now tour.

The cover picture is the same one used in the Eras Tour to represent the Speak Now era.

It will be available for purchase on July 20th.

17 March 2023: Taylor drops If This Was A Movie (TV), which was a deluxe track on Speak Now, and Safe & Sound and Eyes Open (TV), which were first performed live on the Speak Now tour.

9 April 2023: Photos from the set of a music video being filmed in Liverpool are leaked. The Speak Now tour flying balcony and piano can be seen.

13 April 2023: Taylor says that "recently one of my albums has been on my mind a lot" before performing Speak Now.

1 May 2023: Taylor posts this. The purple heart speaks for itself.

5 May 2023: WE WON. WE FINALLY WON.

[destinyc1020]

In the breakup video i think Kaja is prob talking about Channing/Zoe too, makes sense since Laura Dern knows her also. I think if she was talking about herself Laura and Cara (i think thats her) wuld b comforting her.

Both Kaia n Austin r working in different states (her in La, him in NY), and i dnt think their like their like Tomdaya where they really try to meet at any little time they have, which is obviously fine. Kaia b out with her friends in LA and Austin? Who knows what he b doi g lmao. They arent photographed as often anymore, which is suprising. Wuldnt b so shocked at whatever status their relationship is bt they seem to b moving differently this yr 👀

Yea, it could be she was talking about Zoe and Channing. 🤷🏾‍♀️ I didn't know they were close like that, but maybe?

I do kinda wonder though if maybe she saw someone filming them with their phone and decided to cut her conversation kind of short. She seemed to look over and see the person filming, and then put her hand on Laura, almost like to say that they're being watched and she doesn't want to divulge anything further. 👀

Both Kaia n Austin r working in different states (her in La, him in NY), and i dnt think their like their like Tomdaya where they really try to meet at any little time they have, which is obviously fine.

They're definitely NOT like Tomdaya where they're joined at the hip to each other with every filming lol... but that's okay! 😅 Every couple does things differently.

Austin and Kaia have never seemed serious to me anyway, so that's not surprising. To me, it just seems like a causal relationship that just works for them....for the time being. 🤷🏾‍♀️ I really don't think it's that deep with them lol.

Kaia b out with her friends in LA and Austin? Who knows what he b doi g lmao.

Austin is busy filming right now. He's the lead on this Darren Aronofsky film.... lots of long days and night shoots. He probably goes back to his residential place and crashes in bed after filming tbh lol.

They arent photographed as often anymore, which is suprising. Wuldnt b so shocked at whatever status their relationship is bt they seem to b moving differently this year 👀

Yea, I've noticed a bit of a change this year also ��.... but who knows what's going on? 🤷🏾‍♀️

They just have a very weird relationship imo lol. That's why I don't think it's really all that serious.

[mgopinoon]

So this video of Kaia talking about a breakup could be nothing, as it could be the first big and effective sign we've been waiting for a long time. It's now clear that she has the character of a disrespectful bitch (even though she tries to imply the opposite every time), so perhaps she was speaking publicly about someone else's breakup, be it the one between Zoe and Channing or maybe that of another couple that she knew. But from the way she acts in this short video, it gives me the impression that she is talking about something personal, that is, the breakup between her and Austin. We already knew that if this happened, she and her family would do everything to make Austin out to be the bad guy in the situation. So my theory at the moment is that, before the release of an official article, Kaia is taking advantage of all these parties she attends, to tell her friends and colleagues her version of events, which is that she was suddenly dumped by Austin without no valid reason, while to her it seemed that the relationship was still going well, hence the fact that in the video she says that she was surprised. So I tell you, if in case the long-awaited article on their breakup finally comes out soon, let's prepare ourselves for a narrative that goes in Kaia's favor, even if we sane people already know which of the two in the couple was the real villain.

I think the same, the way he put his hand on Laura Dern's shoulder is a way of saying that everything is fine, as if looking for physical support. I think the breakup article comes later, with that video a new process of speculation has already begun, although the Hollywood Reporter has only published it on Twitter, if they upload it to another social network it may go more viral and people will comment more.

[astridellejo]

I wanted to have a TDOV Easter egg cracking story ready for today, but my ADHD won. So here's something I hastily put together at the last minute (like I always do).

My personal trans lore below the cut:

I grew up as a child of the 1980s and had absolutely no idea that trans was a thing. All I knew is that the body I had was not the body I wanted. Those thoughts started around 1983 when I was nine years old. I thought it was just a normal part of growing up, and that everyone in the world felt like that. Even in my senior year of high school when I was eighteen years old, I was still having thoughts like, "I wish this wanting to be a different sex and gender than the one I'm stuck with part of puberty would hurry up and finish, because it's getting really old now."

[egg emoji (not actually an egg emoji)]

Again, I didn't know trans was a thing. It was about 1995 when I would finally see actual trans people for the first time on some daytime trash television talk show. At which point I was like, "Wait, what? Oh no. I'm gonna be really bad at that, then. Because I just don't have it in me to be that ostentatious." I just wanted to wear black and sit in a dark corner of a café and draw in my sketchbook.

Now because it was the 1990s, your average cishet didn't grasp the difference between sex, gender, and sexual orientation. (It's 2024 now and most still don't.) So everybody thought I was gay. And I was all, "Well, technically yes. But not in the way you think."

See, my crushes in the early 90s were Winona Ryder, and Laura Dern, and Gillian Anderson. And who I wanted to look like was Gina Gershon in Bound, or Ally Sheedy in High Art. But back in the day, the idea of a butch lesbian trans woman just blew everyone's minds. The idiot gender headshrink (the person I had to get a 'permission slip' from to begin my transition) just couldn't wrap that around his brain. Which is why I only saw him three times before demanding my letter.

Then finally in summer of 2002, I began my transition (after almost five years of roadbumps and occasional self-doubt). I began second puberty and went through the really awkward teenage girl phase of transition figuring out my new self expression while my body slowly morphed into a shape that I was much more comfortable having.

It has now been 22 years since I began my transition and I'm happy to report that now I look more or less how I wanted to look in 1998, but with hair that is almost three feet long. (Ooo! Long haired butch!) Plus that hair has streaks of silver in it now, making it so much hotter!

I'm going to be 50 in September, which just short-circuits my headmeats. Does that make me a trans elder yet? Or do I need another decade? Whatever. It'll be interesting to see how my midlife crisis plays out.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Happy Transgender Day of Visibility!

(The selfie is from three years ago because I'm too lazy to go take one now.)

[yangsgirlfriend69]

I made it onto the Indie Bestseller list by posting on TikTok. Don’t do what I did.

IDK how to use tumblr but here are some thoughts

Maybe I should wait to write this, to have a little distance from publishing my book. When I see authors who are at the same place I am — a week and a day out from publication — their captions often sing the praises of their publishers. They’ll mention how grateful they are that all their hard work paid off, that the years of writing and editing and blood, sweat, tears, or whatever other bodily fluids they put into their manuscript were worth it for the moment the book came out.

For me, it wasn’t.

#

The writing process for How to Excavate a Heart was liberating. I came up with the idea while driving to a Long Island Panera (where all good ideas are formed), and started outlining it while eating their dubiously-sourced mac-and-cheese.

I then proceeded to, as I texted verbatim to at least three close friends, “fart out the novel.” I wrote it in about six weeks while on a train trip visiting family and friends, and I cherished every moment of the process.

That was in late 2019/early 2020, and it was the last time my feelings about the book were purely positive.

How to Excavate a Heart (HTEAH) sold in the late summer of 2020, to be published in Fall 2022. I was more focused on my debut novel, Almost Flying, that was slated to come out in the summer of 2021. Which it did, though if you didn’t know it existed you certainly wouldn’t be alone. It earned a Stonewall Honor from the American Library Association, and I think the week that happened it crested to a new high of 20 copies nation-wide or something depressing like that.

Needless to say, I was frustrated by what I saw as lack of support from my publisher, and was determined to not let the same fate befall HTEAH. I was already fairly active on TikTok after originating the Laura Dern Sitting Challenge (my one true claim to fame), but I had heard that TikTok was generally not a fruitful platform for authors, or that, even if authors were popular, it didn’t translate to book sales.

So of course my first thought was, “Why don’t I push this boulder uphill and see what happens?”

So I posted my first TikTok about HTEAH in February of 2022. It flopped in an expected way, but I continued to post about it consistently, and, over time, amassed a small following. The HTEAH hashtag grew (almost all the videos on it were are still are my own), and I was thrilled that people were hearing about my book.

At the time of writing this, the hashtag has over two million views, and I can directly trace over 1,000 individual sales/preorders of my book to TikTok and TikTok alone.

Here’s the price I paid: My girlfriend has watched my mental health slowly deteriorate over this time. She’s seen me quit writing to focus on promoting this book, for the small chance that, I don’t know, someone might care. And now some people do! Hooray.

I spent nine months promoting a book to get it to the sales that it might’ve gotten if my publisher had supported it. Or maybe not — I have no way of knowing. All I know is that if I hadn’t posted about the book on TikTok, you wouldn’t be reading this. It wouldn’t have gotten on the Indie Bestseller list. It wouldn’t have made the Indie Next list. It wouldn’t be a book box pick.

And I wouldn’t be so burnt out I can barely get up from the couch. I wouldn’t be depressed from staring at my phone all day.

Maybe if I hadn’t done all this, I’d be able to write again, to turn in work on time. To live each day without the fear that I’m not doing enough because if I don’t post a TikTok my book will sell horribly like my last one and then that’s it, I’ll be a failed author before my 25th birthday.

What a healthy mindset, huh?

So sure, if you post consistently on TikTok for nine months before your book comes out, enough people will buy your book that you might make it onto a list. But please, I beg of you, don’t. If your publisher doesn’t support you enough to give you marketing, don’t do it yourself. You cannot be an entire team. You cannot be your own publicist.

I am one person. And now I’m done.

Anyway, you can buy my book at excavateyourheart.com and you cannot find me on social media anymore (except maybe tumblr apparently). Stream Loneliest Time by CRJ.

[lovetogether]

Post Inland Empire quick thoughts (before bed): we really enjoyed it, up there now in possibly our top ten films. We had been told by Thomas that it seemed to be “Perfect Blue if it were made by lynch” nd most here know Perfect Blue is one of our all time favorites, being our introduction to more surrealist and “complex” media. Inland Empire lacked the twist Perfect Blue had however making it probably a more digestible and kind outlook than Perfect Blue. However, Inland Empire is much more dense than Perfect Blue, it’s rarely straight forward and incredibly disjointed. We understood the film back to front for the most part but that’s often our takeaway from complex media nd we Don’t Know Why. Inland Empire is three hours long! As most films this length do, it drags on. Sadly barely anyone except Gaspar Noe has mastered the elegance of stupidly long movies - and that’s not even bringing up that Gaspar Noe films aren’t made to be enjoyed. We forgive Inland Empire for this length though as we often do for longer movies as it still felt purposeful in its slower moments. There’s not a lot we’d cut, which is good! The film was especially satisfying for us to watch given our pallet and tastes. It mimicked one of old favorites since middle school, it fell into line with every little thing we’d want from something like this, it had the peculiarity and absurdness of lynch films, along with a stellar performance from Laura Dern. If you can parse dense media and enjoyed the core thesis of Perfect Blue but didn’t enjoy the twist we’d definitely recommend this film as a substitute. An actress faced with dissociation in the face of her roles is a concept we wish was toyed with more, this movie was GREAT. It was weird though and hard to follow so keep that in mind o7 thank you.

[lindszeppelin]

The age gap is definitely a problem for Austin now. They are truly are in 2 completely different points in life. Hence why he said they have nothing in common. Kaia has played her cards and shown she really isn't what he thought she was.

Austin is very much career driven. He takes his work seriously and wants to excel in everything he does. He wants to earn the respect of his peers. He busted his butt for 20 years and has worked hard for his roles. He doesn't expect handouts. As far as relationships, I don't think he necessarily is looking for marriage quite yet. But he is a relationship guy. He is looking for someone who is on his level. Someone he can have intellectual conversations with. Who has a strong work ethic, etc.

Kaia is 22 and acts like she's 22, which is fine. The problem is she tries to act older than her years. She changes herself for her boyfriend of the time. She can try to act like she's mature all she wants, but at the end of the day she's a spoiled rich kid. Nothing will change that. She relies on her parents status to get ahead in life. It's pretty obvious she has no work ethic or drive to be better. She expects to be handed roles because of her parents, their connections (laura dern), her attachment to Austin, and b/c she's pretty (which is subjective). She has the personality of a wet mop. Shows no emotion (dead eyes, monotone voice)...you get the picture.

I agree that at first Austin thought this could be a good idea. But it's been clear for a few years now, that Kaia is not at all what he thought. He wants out. He's seen they have nothing in common other than maybe a love for reading, which is not a reason to continue dating. The writing has been on the wall since 2023. Now, we wait for Austin to make his move...

It really sucks because she clearly played him into her hand when he was vulnerable. She was on a mission to get with Austin as soon as she dumped Elordi, and she had to have researched Austin's interests to hook him in. I'm sure Austin was taken aback by someone Kaia's age being into niche books or movies that he also liked, etc. Perhaps he also believed the clear lie that she likes to taut around as being older for her age. His windshield was foggy, let's just say it like that. Which is perfectly understandable for the mindset he was in. He wasn't seeing things clearly, and she was doing a great job at putting on a deceptive mask and hooking him in. Being pretty and liking books might have been interesting in the beginning as he was trying to figure out who he was and navigate his career and being in his 30s, but once the rose colored glasses come off and you're seeing things for what they are, that leaves a pit in your stomach of "oh shit what have I gotten myself into?".

I'm sure he tried to make the best of a shitty situation while he had to, and tried to get her to be serious about her career for once in her life, and implement a bit of humility in her. He wants to see the good in people I think. And he hoped she would get off his back and actually put pen to paper, so to speak, and do something meaningful with her acting career if that's what she wants. But the more it went on, clearly he saw she wasn't going to stop taking the easiest path to victory.

Also I agree that Austin is a man that likes being in relationships. He doesn't have to be ready for marriage, and even if he was it was never going to be with her anyway. He understands that it has to be the right person and the right set of circumstances. Kaia Gerber does not have the right values or morals to bring to a real marriage with a real man that comes from a family of divorced parents, and therefore thinks even more critically about what a lasting committed marriage means. He knows that when he eventually wants to settle down that it's gonna be with a woman that is on his same wavelength. He's been in this fucked up situationship for so long that he needs to have fun with the next woman he's with. Enjoy life again, be carefree and happy with someone on his level. And i'm excited for that day to come where we get to see him take a load off his shoulders and walk with pride alongside that special lady

[wallbeatjournal]

if you had to base a new riverdale season off three movies, which would you choose and why? they could be tonal choices or you can pluck entire elements of the movies and work them in.

ok i broke the rules bc i didn't stick to movies, i went novels and pop culture with it too. and i also kind of embroidered a few references together around each main riff in a way that i think COULD be riverdalian, but these are my 3 selections:

jt leroy (2018). trashy iffy-hot-take kristen stewart/laura dern movie about a very 2000s literary scandal/internet drama run Too Far into irl drama that i think riverdale would know better what to do with. two ideas (this is a jughead plot btw):

put jughead in the dissociated trauma-projecting controlling persona-having laura albert/jt leroy role and rope veronica and reggie and their monetary-business motivations into the scam angle. monica posh savannah knoop stuff and rattling veronica and jughead around in a jar together intensely in a campy way

or step lightly outside the bounds of this script into the real livejournal and myspace based drama of it all and jughead's sometimes-characterization as a guy who needs help unpacking metaphor even though he's swimming in it. make him into one of the many emo band boys (ryan ross?? ryan ross????) who related so so so so sosososo much to the writing of jeremiah terminator and then had a whole crisis when j.t. was unmasked as a middle-aged woman with a metaphorical literary persona.

permissible bonus web-weaves: james frey a million little pieces and oprah, augusten burroughs and running with scissors. we're doing the 2000s obsession with author authenticity is-this-really-autobiographical-if-it's-not-literally-true-or-are-you-shaming-your-family-for-NOTHING questions and scandals. but we're especially doing the emo community freaking the fuck out about blorbo from their novels doing a catfish online to extend the persona just that much further.

the avril lavigne replacement conspiracy theory (linking the wiki even though what i'm REALLY thinking of here is this moving pandemic essay alexander chee my beloved posted that i can't locate now, riffing on themes of feeling like a ghost inhabiting your own life after a major trauma). they can work in some other famous body double / replacement and assassination conspiracies (paul is dead, jfk) too but avril is the main reference and this is a betty plot.

pull in some actual alexander chee images and motifs too maybe, his novels about csa grooming trauma and having complicated feelings about your intimate abusers via like grandiose opera/paris siege metaphors (the queen of the night) and fox demons (edinburgh) betty would eat, i fear, even if they're a step off her normal serial killer media mix. dark betty has the range <3

stephen king's the long walk / suzanne collins' the hunger games / battle royale / state-sponsored brutal murderous game show authority abuse dystopia media homage in general!! especially when it's homoerotic and full of ptsd and institutional abuse, because clearly this is a plot primarily for archie and the lads. imo the long walk ("how bad do you have to hate yourself to join the military" but it's game show horror) and the hunger games ("child stardom is traumatic institutional abuse especially in the era of social media and society simply pretends not to see it" but make it a ya game show adventure) should be the main references, but we could work the academic/art-competition angle of battle royale for kevin. as a treat. ok yeah and maybe work in that arnold schwarzenneger movie the running man too while we're here picking up interwoven motifs at the store. why not!

[bluevelvet-redroses]

When does Blue Velvet take place?

Contrary to popular belief, the movie does not happen in the fifties or sixties. Lynch himself mentioned in the past that Lumberton is supposed to be a town lost in time, since most of its citizens dress like they're still in the fifties. Almost in a similar manner as in Twin Peaks.

Let's take a look at Jeffrey Beaumont's drivers license, which for starters shows us it's impossible the movie happened in the fifties/sixties:

Jeffrey was born on March the 7th, 1963. Unless Jeffrey is a time traveler, it's impossible the movie would've happened in the fifties/sixties. This fragment of Blue Velvet Revisited also gives us his age during the movie:

Jeffrey is a twenty one year old at the time the film happens. If we do 1963 + 21, we get 1984, which is the year the movie is set in.

Now that we got the year where the story takes place, during which period in 1984 does it happen?

The script states Sandy is a senior student in the movie, finishing highschool. She knew Jeffrey on highschool and told him she saw him there. Sandy also drinks and drives with no problem. In the eighties, teens could drink by 18, and Laura Dern was 18 when the filming for the movie took place between Summer and Fall of 1985, so I doubt Sandy is any younger than 18. This makes Sandy eighteen years old in the movie, close to finishing senior year considering the light clothes she wears. My guess is that the movie takes place in late Spring-early Summer of 1984.

[steampunkforever]

In film the concept of "style over substance" is a tricky one, because this is in a visual medium where leaning wholly into "style" is artistically viable, and often encouraged.

Famed director Wes Anderson gets pinged for being "style over substance" for this very reason. The entire "brand" he commands is hyperstylization, and the substance of the characters, plots, and his films often use the more two-dimensional character work to hyperstylize further. This contributes to basically any center-framed pastel filter shot on instagram getting marked "Wes Anderson Aesthetic," but analysis of the philosophy and deployment of Anderson's visuals clearly demarcates a line between "style over substance" and "style *becoming* substance." Which is to say that the style/substance argument is still viable when applied to Anderson, but is not in fact the silver bullet for categorizing every film he's made since the Life Aquatic.

In contrast, the film Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains is a more concrete, if nuanced example of true "style over substance," but this time thanks to studio meddling, not due to the single-minded pursuits of a twee auteur.

The movie itself is solid. Performances from very young Diane Lane and Laura Dern are spot on, visually the film looks great (minus some unconvincing cinematic rain), and its message of girl power is tempered in its saccharine messaging by the nuance of Diane Lane's character arc. Art at least the nuance of her arc right up until the end, which was ruined by the studio.

The Fabulous Stains are a girl group led by Diane Lane's Corrine "3rd Degree" Burns, a 15-ish year old girl made famous by quitting her job as a fast food worker on national television, now leading young punk girl group to fame and infamy. She's immensely unlikable in an interesting way that I appreciate, and balances the fact that 15 year old girls suck with a performance that eschews the annoying child actor trope. It's well written and well delivered, and tells a tale of the rise and fall of punk rock. The ending just renders it hollow.

This is a film about ego and making it. The start of the movie has the Stains opening for a washed up glam metal band whose bassist, the only member of the group with true talent, overdoses in the ladies toilet. This is the way of the rocker. You will hit the height of your fame one day. It's all downhill from there until you finally meet your demise. A sellout. Uncool. Old. The rocker's death gives the Stains their big break but also foretells Corrine's demise. All those cigarettes will catch up to her one day. And at the end of the movie The Stains must pay the piper.

Except they don't. You have the studio to thank for this. They wanted a happy ending, and threw out an engaging evil woman narrative for-- I kid you not-- an MTV music video. The struggle for fame, fortune, and artistic ethics is wiped away in favor of a message that boils down to "if you fail to keep your artistic integrity in the face of success you can always sell out." Which feels much emptier than what the first half of the film was setting us up for. With the substance gutted the film becomes solely style.

That said, it's a much better girl band film than Josie and the Pussycats or that one Jem and the Holograms movie with Hayley Kiyoko. Plus the sanitized ending gave us the inspiration for that one Ex Hex music video. Despite what it could have been, it's a solid film for some casual viewing.