My Blog Posts

Surprise, it's a new story! But the wrong one, not the one I was working on... It's ok, it's a light fluff piece I did, nothing great, but just a fun story about a lil gobbo girl

It's 3k words, and it's an easy read. There is like, no trigger warning on this one. It is 100% fluff.

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Gobbo!

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If you liked it, join the discord and let me know! If not, then... I guess you can still join the discord, but be gentle...

Until next time,

Erica

Hey friends. I did not update on Friday. I was not feeling well at all, mentally, physically, just in general. I had a fairly slow weekend, I tried to cook some stuff, I may make a post about it later, not sure, and one of my friends came over. Rin came over too, but like. She's always over on the weekend, so it's not like, a thing.

I finished the books I was reading last week, I just didn't like, review them until today. The first was The Gold Persimmon, by Lindsay Merbaum

It was a book that thrives on vibes, if that makes sense. It's told in two parts, the first part is about a woman named Cly who works in a fancy, quiet, perfect hotel, and is caught between her job, and a guest who just keeps trying to get her to "break character", which would jepordize her position at the hotel. The second part is about an NB person named Jaime, who is at a hotel (a different one) for an interview, and gets trapped inside when something terrible happens outside, but no one is quite sure what.
The book has a feeling of lovely pain and dread and mounting horror at times, but it feels very directed and meaningful, like, I got the image of an extremely smart lady calmly telling me the book with exactly enough force and power as she needed to without being forceful or using power. It focuses very much on feelings of powerlessness, and has an undercurrent of femininity feeling undercut and abused by power, and the fear and helplessness that comes with that feeling. It's very, very well written, and I love this type of horror. I'm not going to do the book a disservice by comparing it to other books, it stands alone, but if the description of the vibes I gave sounds interesting to you, please read it.

The comic this week was Giantess, written by Jean-Christophe Deveney, and illustrated by Núria Tanarit

This was a very strongly feminist comic, and it had a really well told story that felt very heartfelt. It's about a girl named Celeste, who was found in the woods as a child, and raised by a family on their farm. She was a very large child, and as an adult, she's about 60-ish feet tall (or like, 18 meters). Weirdly enough, while the story does involve her size and deals with her feeling like she's different because of it, the main focus of the story is that she, as a woman, is treated differently than others. Her size is used as a sort of exaggeration of the power she has as a woman, her inner strength, her intelligence, it's all parallel to her size. People call her a witch, they treat her like an object, they reduce her to her ability to have children, it's very clear that the story is using her status as a giantess to convey a narrative about women. It's... a bit clunky at times, because they DO actually address the fact that she's having these issues because she's a woman, but the message stays the same. I like Celeste as a character overall, she's kind, and wants to help others, and isn't afraid to fight for her beliefs (although there's a few scenes where I was confused why she DIDN'T fight...) and she keeps to her morals and doesn't let men change her, a fem icon. It's not amazing as a story, and the art is a bit plain, but it's a fun read if you'd like some fantasy feminism.

Until next time,

Erica

Golly gee friends, I have really had an eventful past little bit... I had a halloween party to go to, I was so, SO looking forward to it, and I really tried my best to dress up and look cute for it, because I was meeting two people there, and I triiied to dress up as a witch? But like... it was just clothes I already had, and the hat from Dragoncon

But the party itself was super fun, it was like, greek themed? Which, weird choice for a halloween party but go off, it was a blast. I played games, I ate bread, I danced to Lady Gaga songs with Gandalf, Walter White, and Jesse Pinkman, I met the people I was supposed to meet, and I had like, 4 drinks.
Now, I started progesterone this week, so I was already like, a bit off? Prog has this weird side effect of giving you a sliiiiight buzz after you take it, it's weird, so 30 minutes after my 4th drink, when I started feeling REALLY bad, I assumed that it was just an interaction with my new medicine, and I told my sister Rin, who was at the party with me, "Hey, I gotta go outside for a minute, I'm feeling really bad..." and I left. I ended up back at my car, no idea how I got there, and got in. The car was off, and I was leaning out of the door, and I remember nothing, except flashes of Rin showing up, hitting me, crying, pulling on me, making me get out of the car, me falling over, the front of my car being smashed, an uber, and Bob Ross on youtube while Rin cried in my dining room.

So

What I can piece together, was that someone actually roofied my last drink, I had it behind me while I played pinball for quite a while, and that's why it hit so hard so fast.
I got out to the car, and stayed there for over an hour, so Rin came looking for me, and found me passed out, not moving. She tried to get me to drink water, but I wouldn't move, and she said I stopped responding to her talking and to her shaking me, and she thinks I stopped breathing, so she thought I was dead or dying. She freaked out, obviously, and got me into the passenger seat (She said I kept falling out lol) but once I was buckled up, she got in the driver's seat, turned on the car, and pulled out of the parking spot.
Cutting the wheel too much, getting the front bumper caught, and pulling it all the way off.

She freaks out AGAIN, because this is a very expensive car that I was given, and she was just so worried that it's ruined. She pulls me out to see the damage, and I woke up enough to fall over, see the front, cry, bonk my head, and lay on the pavement and pass out. I was OUT OF IT. I have never been that "drunk" in my life, and I usually have 3-5 drinks when I'm out at a party, so, I was almost certainly drugged, but she didn't know that, she thought her sister was dying of alcohol poisoning, and then she got scared because I'm doing DIY HRT, and she thought that they'd put me in jail for it if she took me to the hospital, and now the car, she just thought someone was going to jail.
I apparently told her to get an uber, and she ubered me home, and got my car towed. At home, I somehow managed a shower, and then lay on the couch with Bob Ross playing while she finished up with the tow truck.
The next day, I woke up, and felt like garbage, just so bad, shaky, stomach hurty, headache, bruised all over, a lump on my head, it was rough... But like, geez, watch your drinks, girls...

I'm glad Rin is ok, but I feel so, so bad that she had to go through that, I have this horrible weight in me that I put her through that, and I want to fix it but don't know how.

My insurance is being butts too, I was trying to make it so she wouldn't pay for anything, or get hit on her insurance, but they're like "did she get permission to use the vehicle?" and I'm like "well it was an emergency" and they're like "yes, and you were not conscious, so she was driving without permission." and like, just trying to make her the bad guy when she was doing what she could to help, it's really shitty and just... UGH.

Then yesterday, I'm dealing with the insurance company, and still stressed and icky, and I get an email of the proof of publishing for my name change in the paper, and they spelled EVERYTHING WRONG. But only my new name, my deadname? Spelled perfectly.
I called to have it changed, and I called 6 times before someone answered, and partway through me explaining what I needed changed, he just said
"Ok, yeaaaah, I'm hanging up now."
and HUNG UP ON ME. Gosh. I was so frustrated... I ended up calling the main office of the paper instead of the advertising department, and getting transferred to someone else who DID fix it, but I swear that feels like it was done to fuck with me, and the hanging up on me? It's just.... gosh...
Anyway, it's a mess, it never ends...
I am reading some good books, but... I'll review them Friday, I've been listening to a really long audio book, like 2M words, so I'm reading physical books slower...

Until next time,

Erica

I have had a pretty eventful past few days, friend... This weekend, my sister wanted to just chill, which kinda sucked because I had a dance party, a meetup, and a munch to go to, but she's more important, so I stayed home from the first two, and we just chilled and hung out instead and watched a bunch of movies and finished a show we were watching, so that was nice.

Sunday, after Rin left, I headed out to my munch (my first ever!) and I ended up playing games, making friends, drinking mead, and having a sword fight with foam swords (I was really bad). We had a raffle too, and I won! I got a board game called Carcassonne, and I've heard of it, but never played it, so that'll be a lot of fun. I had a LOT of mead, it was low-ish abv, I had about 28oz of it, and it was goooood, but I had a headache for two days...

Last week I decided I was going to legally change my name to Erica, hang the consequences, so I got the documents from a law firm and filled them out, and yesterday I took them to the bank to be notarized. The absolute asshat in the bank was like "Oh, I can't condone this, I won't notarize this, you need to go somewhere else" and that was like, really frustrating... I found a guy in a print shop that did it for $5 each and like... ugh, "I won't condone this", screw that guy...
This morning, I took the paperwork, the $250 filing fee, and the $150 printing fee for the local paper to the courthouse, and I dressed up, like, really cute, because I heard the filing clerks can deny you for whatever reason, so I was wearing a nice skirt, tights, my cute boots, a top with black lace, a full face of makeup, and I STILL got "sir"ed THREE TIMES by two cops... Like... gosh, please, I'm trying... It just made me all stressed out, but I did end up getting to file, and the filing clerk was very nice to me, and that was pretty good.
I have to wait 28 days for the paper to publish the name change like, 4 times, then there's a 30 day waiting period, not sure why? and then I'll be assigned a court date within 30 days. So... 60-90 days, I'll hopefully have my new name... I'm super stressed out, but also super excited... It's just up to time and the judge now...

Until next time,

Erica

Friends I am stressed stressed stressed. I set up a telegram account so I could connect with some online groups that I wanted to be a part of, and I set it up with my real name, a nice pic of one of my characters, my age, whatever. I pop on and join the groups, all is fine, I chat, I'm making friends, I made sure to deny the app access to my contacts, duh, and I was pretty happy to have another chat app to make friends on.
Then.
I get a message. FROM MY GRANDMOTHER. One of THREE people in the world who I'm not ok with being out to, and she is very very close to one of the other two. She just slides into my dms with a "hello!" and I freak out... I blocked her, and after 20 minutes of trying to find the settings, block her from seeing my profile. Like... Gosh, I don't know why the stupid app connected me to her after I said no, I don't know why she has that app? I was told it was for queers and furries??? I don't know if she saw my bio, it's a mess... From what I hear, it would have shown up to her as whatever I was listed as in her phone, then when she looks at my bio or goes to message me, it would have swapped to Erica. So... I don't know if she saw anything or what... If she isn't stupid (and she might be) then she knows I'm trans now, and she'll tell my bosses wife, and she'll tell him, and that ends with a lawyer. Gosh. Apparently my grandmother and my bosses wife talked for hours after this, but my coworker didn't hear what it was about, so I really don't know what's going on. I know I can't stay in the closet forever, I have to come out sooner or later, I'm already looking into changing my name legally if I can as soon as I can... I just am very nervous over this, because I don't know what's going on, if she knows, anything... I have to come out to my extended family before my brother's wedding in april, if I want to go, but... it's tricky. I was planning on getting my aunt to tell everyone for me, she's really cool and knows how to talk to people, but if my grandmother knows, then again, I get fired, lose the house, etc. I was hoping to have the company sold by then, but like, it's really tricky too, because I don't have a set in stone, signed paper saying that I'll get a commission off that, just my boss saying it, and he lies about money constantly.

Honestly, I really just want to come out, burn it all down, get fired, lose the house, and tumble through the aftermath until I end up somewhere new, but I don't know where that would be. It'd be nice to just exist though, not have to worry about being someone fake sometimes, or having to dress up in clothes I hate, I could stop hearing my deadname so much, and that would be wonderful...
Anyway, I am just very stressed out over the whole thing, my mom said to just come out and see what happens, my coworker said to just start changing my name and dress how I want (I dress in androgynous clothes at work, but she knows my usual style is gothy skirts and stuff) and just pretend nothing is happening. I don't know which is the better option, I really don't, I just want to be able to exist as myself...

Stress aside, I guess I should review this week's books, the first was called For The Love Of April French, by Penny Aimes

This one was about a trans girl, April, getting into a sub/dom relationship with a cis man, and the tricky, hard to navigate paths of kink, love, dysphoria, and past pains. Her dom, Dennis, does his best to make her feel special and to respect her in every way he can, but he's.... never been with a trans woman before, so there's a learning curve that he wasn't expecting. The book focuses heavily on the types of healthy kink relationships that you should aim for, and highlights several types of kink relationships that are toxic, and life destroying, and should be avoided. It's a stressful book, in parts, but overall it's a romance between two people from different backgrounds coming together to understand each other better and try and be the best person they can be for each other. It's nothing powerful or impactful, but it was a very well written romance, and the kink, while present, was presented in a way that didn't make me too uncomfortable, and felt very "soft" if that makes sense. If you enjoy reading books about kink, or just want a cis man x trans woman romance, give it a shot.

The comic this week was Tender, by Beth Hetland

Friends, I should not have read this one while I was already stressed out. It physically hurt my stomach, it was really good, but really rough for me specifically. It's about a woman who desperately wants to be a wife/mother/perfect, and she is willing to do anything to try and get to that idea of her perfect self. It's beautiful, but it hit on so so many of my triggers, SH, desire for love, desire to be a mother, babies, eating disorders, just, so many things I struggle with, out on the page in visceral detail. It's one of the best graphic novels I've read in a while, but it really did hurt my stomach, I felt hollow and empty and full of dread after reading it.
I want to recommend it, maybe it's not as bad to someone not on the edge of a spiral, but please read it with caution if you do read it...

Until next time,

Erica

Hello all! This weekend was the ATL pride celebration! We celebrate in October instead of June, and gosh am I glad... I'll take 85 degree weather over 105 degree weather any day... I wanted to go to the parade today, but it just wasn't in the cards for me, I went to the fair Saturday and the kickoff Friday though! The kickoff was in the GA aquarium, and that was AMAZING. I dressed up in my cutest club outfit, then put a sweater over it because aquariums are cold, but... I still looked cute.

There were... way more men than I thought there'd be, like it started out as about 25% women, 75% men, but by the end it was around 90% men (or masc presenting people, I didn't ask them their identities). It was so so crowded, and the music was super loud, and NO ONE WAS DANCING! Agggh, that's half the reason I wanted to go, was to dance, but nope... I got up in a window frame at one point, one of the ones you can climb on to look in the tanks, and danced a bit, but it was just me so it was kinda lame. The music was great though, and I did like the DJs they got, there were 3 of them, all in different areas.
I did get to see the fish though! Gosh it was wonderful, I spent most of my time just wandering the halls with Rin, looking at the different animals, which was fantastic.

I gotta say though, the only thing more fun than looking at animals, is looking at animals drunk... I... had a few. I haven't drank in, gosh, a long time, at least not like, drank drank, so when I saw that they were offering drinks, and I knew I was ubering home, I was... very happy. I had 4 cranberry and vodkas, and a jack and coke (one of the ones that comes in a can, it was really gross, I did NOT like it...). It started out fine, I had a couple, and felt good, then I had a couple more, and I was feeling buzzed, but the last one was the jack and coke and I needed to wash that ick out of my mouth, so I got a 5th one, a cranberry vodka, and was like "ok, rin, it closes in 20 minutes, let's beat the rush and get home!"
My last three drinks allll hit in the car home... Gosh, I barely remember any of it... We got home ok, and I sobered up after a mushroom burger and a shower, but I do NOT want to be that drunk again, good lord, the world was moving... 
I had a poweraid, and ended up waking up without a hangover, really, which was lovely, and a vegan spamwich Saturday morning settled my tummy and we were off to the pride fair! I'd been to pride fairs before, but goooosh this one was sooooo massive... I didn't take pics of the fair itself, I thought that might be rude to the people there, but I did get some pride stuff and took pics of that!

I felt so so loved there, I just felt at peace and safe and seen and gosh, just so so happy to be a part of it... There were christians there, protesting, (and the cops were protecting them, ugh) but there were anti protesters, and waaaay more, just yelling "Happy pride!" and "You are loved!" and stuff like that over the protestors, and there were like 6 booths of churches that were there to show their support and show that like, not all christians are asshats. It was really nice, I got a blessing from one of them, and they anointed me with glitter, it was so cool!
Just being in that environment, seeing all the love and support and people expressing themselves and just there being SO MANY of us, it really made me happy, I felt like we do have a chance after all, and that I really will be ok in the long run. It can be hard to remember that we have the love and support we need from others, we just have to stop focusing on the people who hate us.
I will say though, I got pretty overwhelmed a few times, the festival area with the music was LOUD, and it stressed me out when we went down there in front of the stage, and there were SO MANY people in places that I felt like I was being pushed around, although I'll take more people than fewer at pride any day. There was also the smell, it was a mix of sweat, lotion, essential oils, weed, fried food, and garbage, and gosh did it get to me sometimes. Rin said it was how fairs smell, and yeah, ok, but gosh, I need a mask next time, I was getting nauseous. I do know my sense of smell (and taste) has changed in the past year, so that may also be it.

Anyhow, after that, we came home, then went to the store and got stuff for black olive naan bread pizzas, and we demolished them while watching scary movies, it was such a lovely end to a wonderful day, I think this is one of the best weekends I've had in a long time.

I'm all sore still, and really tired, so I'll leave you now, and go play video games with Rin for a bit, and try and rest from the past two crazy days, I hope all of you have a wonderful day!

Until next time,

Erica

I had a very tiring weekend, friends, not that it was bad, but gosh am I sleepy.

On Friday I went out to a bar again, and I ended up not staying at the limit I set for myself, which was very stupid. But I guess it kinda worked? I ended up getting the info of two guys there, and like, I'm not sure if I am fully interested in them yet (I don't know them well enough to tell), it is nice to say the least. I've been talking to them a bit and both seem sweet, so mayhaps.
I also got ass-grabbed that night, but not by one of those two, a different guy. I didn't really know how to react at the time, I was kinda tipsy, so I just kinda thought "oh, ew, weird..." and wandered away from the guy without doing anything, which is probably the worst way to have dealt with it, but whatever. The next day once I sobered up, I kinda, like, got icked by it? But in an odd way, it was half like "god I don't want to go out again in case that happens again, I feel gross over that..." and there's like, this little evil voice whispering behind that saying "someone thought you were pretty enough to grope! You must feel like a woman NOW, right?..." and like, I know it's most likely internalized misogyny or something, and I need to get rid of it, but it's like, idk, making the icky feeling less icky, so it's hard to WANT to tell that voice to fuck off.
Maybe it's a defense mechanism, or a way my brain is trying to deal with it... I didn't enjoy it and I do NOT want it to happen again, so it's not like I secretly liked it or whatever, idk, it's a mess.

Anyway, after that night, I was super hung over, and woke up too early, and was groggy all day, then like 9 at night on saturday one of my friends came over... I ended up staying up till 2-something with them and Rin watching movies and stuff. Sunday I was able to chill a bit, with Rin, and just watch silly shows and play games, but then she left and I had to meal prep, so I actually eat this week. I made burritos with...
onions,
carrots,
peas,
cauliflower,
mushrooms,
vegan "chicken",
vegan chorizo,
lentils,
chickpeas,
pinto beans,
refried beans,
vegan queso,
and TONS of taco sauce and spices
all cooked separately and then mixed into a bowl that can be heated up when I want it for like, ez burrito dinners.
And gosh that took like, over an hour.
But like, whatever, I saved soooo much time for the whole week, and maybe a bit of next week, idk. And it's yummy.

But the point is, I'm tired, really tired. I went to bed at like 10 last night, and slept past my alarm to 8:30 and I'm STILL tired. I told Rin "this weekend will be a do nothing weekend, we will do absolutely nothing the whole time" and that was that!

....Until I realized that this weekend is the ATL pride event....
And gosh, I really really wanted to go and live it up there, like, GOSH. I want to go to the dance party at the aquarium friday, and the arts fair saturday, and the trans march saturday, and the queer women dance party saturday night, and the parade on sunday, and... I'm too tired to think about any of that... I really want to, and I WILL end up doing SOME-thing, for it, but gosh, I just feel tired, friends... and next weekend I already RSVPed for ANOTHER dance party, albeit a less unique one...
I'm not even a good dancer, I just like getting tipsy and bopping along to the music, wiggling around and feeling cute, I don't actually know how to like, dance dance. Unless English Country Dancing counts. I took that for like three years, I went to balls and stuff for it, but... it wasn't my favorite.
I'll figure it out, I'll... work it out in my head and I'm talking to Rin about it, we're thinking maybe Uber instead of driving, and skip the parade on Sunday, just charge back up that day, and it could be doable, but I really did want to see the parade... We'll see, it's ok, we shall see.

Until next time,

Erica

Friends! I'm sorry it took so long for me to pop on and post, but gosh darn if I haven't had much to say. I think it's sort of my own problem, I haven't done much interesting lately... I had a friend over this past weekend though, one I knew from waaaaay back when, from before I was out, and like, way before that too. I think we met when we were like... 12? Ish? He's ok, he's trying his best to be ok with my whole trans thing, and I think he is for the most part? he uses they/them pronouns for me which is... weird, but like, whatever I guess, I don't personally like going by they/them, that's not my gender identity, but it's slightly better than my old ones.
We played board games, watched Daria, and talked about random stuff, until I drank two energy drinks (because I'm stupid) and absolutely gushed about boys and what types of guys I liked for way too long and made him very uncomfortable, and that feels kinda bad... I tend to get very... "personality" when I have too much caffeine. it doesn't give me energy really, but it makes me focus more, and I get less anxious, so I can get a bit silly. I get a double redbull and vodka (with a splash of grenadine) as my first drink every time I go out just to get that good vibe going.

Other than that, I had a hurricane come through here, and then like, THE NEXT DAY a chemplant caught fire and covered the state with horrible chlorine gas. They said "Oh it's dangerous! Stay inside!" But then a few hours later they were all "Ohhhh, noooo, it's totally fine to breathe, it's fiiiine" and like, I was coughing, and had a headache and everything, and it's like. Yeah. "fine".
But it's all ok now, the pool water smell is gone, and my chest hurt for a couple days, but I'm ok now, so it all worked out. They're saying the next disaster is going to be ANOTHER hurricane, next week, and then there's a big shipping strike? So everyone is mass buying groceries, and like, I'm stocked up on tofu and rice and stuff for weeks so I'll be fine, but everyone else is acting like the food will run out by next week, and I just don't think it's that big a deal, but what do I know I guess... It's like, gosh, let's just calm down for a bit, why does there have to be a crisis all the time?...

I've been thinking about my appearance these past couple weeks, and like, for one, I'm starting to feel... a bit better about my body? It's not great, I know I still have a LONG way to go before I'm like, attractive conventionally, but... Well, I'm starting to feel more comfortable. I have almost-hips now, and kinda-boobs, and that really is helping me feel ok...



My face though, is a different story. I... have to dress up in a guy disguise for work sometimes, a "dis-guy-se" if you will, and I had to do that last week, and I was all dressed up in the clothes that make my brain scream, no makeup, no earrings, no jewelry, hair up in a bun, and I saw myself in the mirror and thought "ooh... I'd date him..." and INSTANTLY wanted to curl up and cry.
I just... I know I'm not pretty, my sister says "You really don't look like a guy anymore" but that doesn't mean I'm pretty, not by a long shot, but the thought of seeing myself on those clothes and distanced from my true self as far as I could be and not only misgendering myself but attributing positive emotions towards it??? Gosh, it tore me up inside, for days. I really felt fucked up. I looked in the mirror as long as I could stand once I was back in my real clothes, and had a face of makeup on, and I couldn't see anything to be attracted to, nothing jumped out at me as "pretty". And yet somehow, I had gotten a flash of self-attraction when I saw myself as a GUY of all things. I don't know, I've never looked at myself and thought I was in any way attractive, and I had HOPED that if I ever saw myself as attractive it'd be, like, you know, because of all the work I'm doing to make my body match my brain.
IDK, I'm nnnnot really crazy about the idea of being attracted "to myself" at all because, well... I really don't want to give anything J. Michael Bailey (who's a stupid fuck) says credence, and honestly, I'm not really attracted to myself, or even the idea of myself in any way usually, so this whole thing is... weird.  One of my good friends, who is a very kind ally, said "well, girls do make the hottest guys" when I told her about this, and then talked about how the hottest guys she sees on social media are like, girls doing crossplay, and that it makes sense I'd be attractive dressed as a guy, because I'm a girl. I... kinda get that. It isn't quite right, but I think she is kinda maybe onto something, but I don't really know what.  I guess I'm still fucked up over it, it's silly, but it made my dysphoric in ways you wouldn't believe, and I still feel a bit ick thinking about it, and I really don't know how to resolve it...

Anyway, trans issues aside, let's talk about trans books. The one I read this week was Little Fish, by Casey Plett

It's very good, it's another "trans girl in the big city, what will she do? Oh, prostitution, ok." books, and like, I kiiiinda love them, because they make me feel... I don't know, icky? safe? depressed? hopeful? All at once somehow. This one in particular is about a woman named Wendy, who's grandmother just died, and she gets a call from a friend of the family who told her that her grandfather (who passed away years ago) was "like her". She then spends the rest of the book dancing around this idea, and struggling to come to terms with it while also avoiding it.
The book and the characters are messy and toxic and hurt and lovely and so, so human I just want to give them all big big hugs. I literally thought multiple times through the story "Ohhh, I wish I was there so I could hug her..." about multiple characters, they're just portrayed so well. It feels like real life humans on the page, and I'm always impressed with how authors are able to do that, I hope to get there one day...  Wendy struggles in her life with sex and her sexuality, alcoholism, depression, and how she should be interacting with the world and her place in it, although the last part could be most stories. She also has a religious struggle, her family is all mostly Mennonites, and it comes up a lot, and is in some ways part of the lens through which Wendy sees the world. I know like, half of trans people have religious issues, but it's still interesting and relevant to me.
I felt very seen by this book, I'll 100% re-read it when I finish my list of to-be-read books, and I am already looking forward to it.

This week's comic was also trans!... Kinda. not really? But gender fuck-y anyway. It was 24/7 Magical Maiden Mimi

Gosh, this was way too short, I'd read a dozen volumes of this comic, instantly... It's about a 7th grade boy named Milo, who's a lonely loser with only one friend, but is also secretly the town's magical girl, Mimi, and he changes form with the press of a button. He's... not trans, I think? Gender fluid maybe, but he seems more comfortable as himself than Mimi, but he prefers being Mimi because of how people love her. It's a really cute story, and I love love love how gay Milo is for his friend, Myko, like, gooosh I spent half the story wondering if Myko was gay or straight, and if that would matter when Milo/Mimi confessed his/her feelings, it was very gay and queer and a lot of fun. If you want a cute silly magical girl comic with fun gender play, then I would so recommend picking this up, I will be checking out the author's other works soon to see if anything else pops out!

Until next time,

Erica

Ahoyhoy friends, I don't have a ton to report to be honest, it's only been 2 days after all, but I HAVE read two new books and I want to go ahead and get those thoughts and ideas out there...
I am not going out this weekend if I can help it, so I thiiiink it'll be boring for a bit, but maybe not. I do want to go out next weekend though, there a party for people 21+ at one of the places I go, and... while Rin can't go, hopefully it works out that we can still hang out that weekend. She said my house is "boring" though, which like. IDK, she can bring stuff to do or watch tv or smth, I'll just be gone a few hours. Whatever tho, it's her call.

The novel I read this week was called "The Seep", by Chana Porter.

It's a story about a woman living in a world that was... not conquered exactly, but overtaken by a non-physical alien entity/entities called The Seep. They're in everything, the ground, the water, the buildings, and they have full control over everything. If you throw something on the ground, it gets instantly recycled, if you need a shower, the building will make one for you, it's universal. The Seep can heal all wounds, change your shape, make you into anything you wanted, an angel, a monster, an ageless rockstar. If you drink a concentrated dose of it, you can get high off of it, and YOU become everywhere. You experience things more deeply, you feel other people's emotions, remember their memories, it's beautiful and scary, and the main character, Trina wants it to leave her alone.
She wanted to live a normal life with her wife, and to just exist and be happy, but her wife wanted to use The Seep to regress to being a newborn baby, and she wanted Trina to mother her, which horrifies Trina and breaks her heart. Her wife would lose all her memories, and be fresh and new, without the trauma, the person she always wanted to be, but not the person Trina married, a baby, with a new life.
The book mostly focuses on the alien understanding of humans, and Trina's grief and emotional journey after the "loss" of her wife. It... made me cry, which isn't rare, but what is rare is that it made me cry in act one. And then again in the very last chapter. I understand both sides of the opinion, I see the desire to use a new tool to become someone you're not, to become part of a whole, and... I understand Trina's view too. She never used The Seep to make edits to her body, she never changed anything about herself with it, because to her, the struggle, the pain of transitioning and the work she put in to "make her insides match her outsides" were her own.
I understand that... I feel that if someone said "here's alien tech that can give you a womb!" I would take it in a second, no thoughts. But... I'm not sure how I'd feel about it long term, maybe I'd regret not taking the long path, or I'd regret putting parts that weren't me in me, I'm not sure. That's the beauty of current GRS, it's like, all still YOU, no alien bits, no new flesh, it's you, and maybe that's important.
I don't know, it's really tricky, but I think the book did a very powerful job at conveying self and pain and loss, and making life and the cycle of death feel beautiful, while still angrily screaming in its face. I would highly, highly recommend this book to anyone.

The comic this week was called "Putty Pygmalion" by Lonnie Garcia

This comic is... Very visually appealing, and very conceptually striking. It's about a young man named Derryl, who buys a large quantity of a banned children's product that used to be able to make little putty friends for kids to play with, about the mass of a can of play-dough. Derryl uses an entire case, and builds a full sized man that he names "Peter", who he then brings to life, and tries to date. He never forces his affection on Peter, but it's made very clear from Darryl's explanation that if Peter was ever seen outside in his putty body he'd be killed, that the relationship is not a healthy one. The comic focuses a lot on Peter's struggle to deal with the fact that he was given life just to sit inside and be the fake boyfriend of someone who barely thinks of him as a person. It's... very sad and a bit scary, and it calls to mind some forms of domestic abuse, while not directly calling it out. The art is so trippy and colorful, and the mixed media of the digital art and the physical putty is really pretty. I read the physical book from Silver Sprocket, but it's also on Itch.io, so it's super easy to read if that sounds interesting to you.

Until next time,

Erica

Hello friends! Sorry it's been almost a week, I have been a weird mix of super busy and super lazy, but here I am, updating! I had a lazy week, up until Friday night, I went out again, and I brought Rin this time. We went to a bar that's a gay bar once a month, for one night only, which is like, I guess that's pretty cool of them. I didn't see a regular gay bar, at least not one that Rin would be allowed into, so this was a fun experience. 

We had a lot of fun, we bet a round of drinks against a couple on a game the bar had, and Rin played for me and her, and she lost, but only by juuuust a hair, and the wife of the couple wouldn't let me buy them their drinks, so we ended up all buying our own instead.  I drank a bit more than I did last week, but not enough to get anything more than warm inside, and I think I found my limit, and I'll try to stay around there from now on when I go out. I kiiiinda sorta wanted to make friends with a couple people who recognized me from my fetlife account (Which like, I have two pics up, of outfits, face blurred, and I wasn't even wearing those outfits, so wth idk how they knew me) but with rin standing right there, it was like, kinda awkward? And they ended up going away to play pinball.
Rin though... SHE found a friend, it was impresive, she made great friends with a young lesbian girl who was her same age, and suuuper friendly, and the whole night it was like "Are they flirting? Do they know?" and it was really cute. Rin doesn't have most social media though, so they couldn't swap information and it ended up with her leaving early... It was fun to see Rin get to have fun though!

The next day, I went to my LGS and did something unspeakable... I bought a Warhammer set...  Now. I don't really know much about Warhammer. Before last week, I knew NOTHING about Warhammer. I thought of it as "the most nerd shit of nerd shit" and didn't really pay it any attention. But... One of the stories I'm working on (something tied to Sweet Touch) was compared to W40k by a friend of mine. They said "Wow, that whole thing you're describing sounds like an obscure Warhammer faction. It'd fit right in" and... well, my brother E is super into it, he love love loves it, so I thought "Well, if my writings already remind people of it, and I need something to connect with E over, and I have wanted to try painting the minis... I may as well try?..."
So I've been watching lore videos on youtube and hooooly fuck does it overwhelm me. I'm getting the hang of it, and I'm figuring out the lore bit by bit, but it's so, so hard to keep it all together. I get overwhelmed though, when I opened the box of minis and saw all the tiny little parts, my head swam, and I couldn't even think about wanting to do it. But I pushed through, and I ended up painting my first two yesterday! I'm kinda proud of them, even if they aren't as good as the stuff I was seeing in the tutorial video.


I tried to talk to some players of the game while I was at my LGS, but they did NOT seem interested, they ignored me, and when I waved, they looked away fast, and one person even pushed me out of the way to get to a part of the table I was by, without saying a word. I'm not sure if it was because I was a n00b, or a woman, or trans, or just because I was a stranger, but I didn't really feel welcome... Maybe I'll just listen to the videos, and talk to E about it, and paint the lil bbs, and not worry about trying to play.

Until next time,

Erica

So... I did it. I wasn't really what I expected? I just kinda went, and played arcade games, danced, like, very little, not really anyone was dancing much, and like, overall, it wasn't nearly as intimidating as I thought it'd be. I had a couple drinks, I thought it'd be ok since I was out, and I think it was, for sure, I haven't relapsed into drinking a ton or anything, so that's fine, but... one of the drinks had cream in it, and I didn't know..... I broke a 9 month vegan streak, over a fancy cocktail...... I'm actually kind of upset at that. Like, a lot really...

But as for the rest of the night itself, it went ok. I tried to flirt with one person right off the bat, but I think I was too obvi, and he was like "I have a girlfriend" and I had to play it off like I wasn't interested. I ended up playing mario party with him and his GF, which was pretty fun, but I don't think I really connected with them too much, which was sad. The next person I tried to flirt with was fully oblivious, I tried talking to him about his childhood and what games he liked as a kid, and that may have been too soft, because he had NO idea I was trying to engage him like that, and ended up wandering off mid level while we played Smash TV. Then the last person I talked to (well, not the last person, but the last person I tried to like, connect with) was doing fortunes in the corner, and I was like "oooh nice, this is a cool person, they'll be awesome" and they were, and they did my fortune (they said I'm doing well, but I need to stop pushing myself so hard) but it turns out they were an employee, so... nnnot ok to 'flirt' with at ALL, so I was very embarrassed, no one wants to be bothered like that at work.

So, the point of the visit wasn't to find a partner, so while I struck out three times, I think that just me going out and flirting and actually trying to party and talk to people is a huge huge success, so I really think it was a very good night!

That said...

It made me think a lot about my potential dating options... I think I'd prefer to date a woman due to safety concerns, or at least my personal feelings of safety? Like, men make me on edge, and I am vaguely uncomfortable around most men, so I'd think that while I don't have a preference in genders, I think I would be way more comfortable with a fem partner. The issue is, I feel like such a creep talking to women, I feel too tall, and ugly, and scary, and unwanted, and I just feel like they're not seeing me as "one of them" and like they feel like I'm in a space I don't belong in. And like, that hurts yeah, but I do NOT want to make people uncomfortable, ever, so like, I just end up not talking to a lot of women because I get "stay away" vibes from them, which... I don't get from men as much. Men will either just be straight up visually disgusted by me, oblivious that I'm a woman at all, or just chill. There's not "vibe energy" that says stuff without words. I do that too though, I kinda use my energy rather than my words to convey stuff, but I also try to be aware of that and communicate when I can. It's tricky, and I'm thinking it may be easier to just try and only date genderqueer people...
Therein lies another issue though, See, from what I can tell, about 3%-6% of the population is trans or genderqueer in some way, let's say 3%. Asexual people make up about 1% of the population. One study that I found said that roughly 7% of trans people are also ace. That means that if I'm looking at only dating trans people, 0.0021% of the population is a viable option for me. 1/50,000 people. Gosh... that means my dating pool, in the ENTIRE USA, is 6000 people, assuming they're ALL single. That is... very scary, and it makes me worry I'm going to be alone forever. I think I'm going to try and get into the larger kink community and maybe try and learn how to do that stuff, because I think I'd have a lot more luck if I could find someone who subs, and if I know what I'm doing, I could make them happy, no sex required. That would at least bump my pool from 6000 people to roughly 3 million, in the USA. But I gotta get used to the idea of doing.... Sex stuff... I've done it before, I tried it with a few people, I tried it with a few people at once even, and I just never liked it at all, it'd actively make me freak out or get icked, but I'm more mature now, I think I could train myself to do some stuff and be ok with it, if it meant I'd have a partner. It's tricky to say the least.
I'm half planning on going out to the same venue this weekend, maybe bring Rin along (It's a queer dance night, not a kink thing), see if I can test the waters a bit more, but we'll have to see.

So, this week's book was a YA novel called If I Was Your Girl, by Meredith Russo

I didn't know it was a YA book when I picked it up, but I would have read it anyway even if I'd have known. It follows an 18 year old trans girl named Amanda who moved in with her estranged father after being hospitalized at her old hometown due to a hate crime. She's fully transitioned, and the book makes it very clear that she passes very well, and that she's a perfect lady and of so beautiful, and... that kinda made me feel dysphoric, because it was highlighting all the ways she naturally passes, where I'm just feeling left out. I think the book itself is equal parts a look into the life of a trans teen, her fears, her trauma, her desires to be normal, and a wish fulfillment book. I don't mean that in a bad way, Dreadnaught was wish fulfillment, and I loved that, but it does feel very much like "This is what trans girls wish they had". Queer friends, cis girlfriends who see you as one of them, a boyfriend who treats you like a princess, passing, getting to fully run away from your old life... And to be clear, the book challenges and confronts those desires and wishes within itself, and it has a sort of "on edge" feeling the whole time of how fragile Amanda's perfect life is and how easy it could all come crashing down, I'm just not used to trans life being looked at in such a positive light, and it surprised me. I would absolutely recommend this one, and I may let my mom borrow it, I'm not sure... She couldn't finish Nevada because it was "too sad" so maybe she could enjoy this one...

The comic this week was Below Ambition by Simon Hanselmann, and it's part of the Megg and Mogg series, and... I barely want to review this one, aside from one really sweet and spoiler-y scene at the very end, I don't think it added anything to the series but more grossness, more of a mess, and more evidence that Werewolf Jones is a terrible person and needs to be stopped...

I love the series, like I said, Bad Gateway hit me HARD, but this one... just isn't my cup of tea. Maybe the next one will be.

Until next time,

Erica

Hello friends, it is 3 nights from my big outing... that's right, I'm going to a kink event Friday night. I know that might not seem like a big deal, it's not even a kink kink thing, it's more like just a rave/dance party that is being put on by and for members of the local kink community, but reader, it is still scary to think about. I think I'm equally worried about being like, hit on and flirted with as I am about being totally ignored and lonely, if that makes sense. On one hand, I don't want people in my bubble, and I'm not really ready for a sexual encounter right now, so I don't want to have to turn people away and be like "oh, no I'm not interested", but on the other hand, I'm very worried that I'll get there, and not even have anyone talk to me. I'll just sit there like a weed, too scared to talk to anyone, too shy to open up or dance, too alcoholic to order a drink so at least I'd look cool by myself...

It is a conundrum dear friend, and a large part of me wants to just call it off, have Rin over instead, and spend the evening watching dumb movies and Twin Peaks. But... I can't do that. I made SURE I can't so that. I have told everyone I know that I'm going to it, so the pressure of like, two friend groups and several close friends is on me to go out, do the thing, and come back and tell them all about it. I can do it, but what's more, I need to.

See, in the past, I've had this... idea of what I wanted my life to be like by the time I was 30. I wanted to be a woman, I wanted to be confident, I wanted to have a partner, I wanted to have a social life, and I wanted to be able to go out and have fun and not be scared.

I am a woman

My confidence is... well, way better than it was, and getting better

I do NOT have a partner

My social life only exists online

And going out and having fun is like pulling teeth for me, what with my anxiety and agoraphobia.

Honestly, I have a couple years, and 1.5/5 isn't... TOO bad, but I am not who I wanted to be, who I wanted to be.

~~~

Let me tell you about a dream I had, about 8 months ago, when the hormones first really started working on my body and mind fully. I was at a family gathering at my Great Grandmother's house, it was the way it was when I was a kid, before my Grandmother ruined it with the "modern" stuff, it was cozy, and dirty, and lived in.
Everyone was there, uncles, cousins, grandparents, from both sides of my family, everyone I was related to was there, celebrating something. I was on the driveway, watching my siblings run and play, and I noticed that next to the driveway was a freezer, a chest freezer. It was one of the old ones. with a dome lid and a manual latch on it, it had once been white, but the sun and red clay had stained it a mix of yellow, brown and orange.

The freezer transfixed me.

I walked over to it, and tried to open it up, but the latch wouldn't open up, it was stuck. I pulled on the lid, and tried to wrench it open by force, but it wouldn't pop open no matter how I tried. Finally, I was fed up, and I got a stick, and I wedged it into the slight crack where the rotten rubber seal was just barely visible, and shoved as hard as I could.
The freezer tumbled down the hill in slow motion, end over end, until it hit a tree with a dull thud, and it spew open with a gush of liquid. I ran down the hill, and saw that there was a young girl in the moldy black water, pale, with black spots on her where she'd been in the moldy water, surrounded by rotting books. She coughed up black water, and looked up at me squinting in the sun, looking lost and alone, and I instantly felt an overwhelming sense that I needed to help her, to protect her. She had been in the freezer for a long time, as long as I could remember, and she was frail and unprepared for the outside world.
I gathered her up in my arms and rushed into the farmhouse, into the kitchen, where all the food was being prepared before it was taken to the basement for the feast, and begged for some food to give her. The family members I asked sneered at me and carried the food away, saying cruel things like "She doesn't belong here" or " You should have left her in the freezer". I turned to see my aunt spraying what was left of the food with a thick oily butter, and I knew the girl couldn't eat that without getting sick, so I grabbed a handful of cookies without waiting for anyone to tell me I could have them, and I rushed out of the house and into the woods.
I lay her under a tree, against the kudzu, and broke the cookies into bits and put them in her mouth. She looked at me and smiled, and the feeling of needing to protect her filled me up again. My family members kept walking by, calling down more mean things to us, or just pretending she wasn't there, until I had fed her enough cookies that she could stand up. She thanked me, her thick country accent sounding soft and clear in the green woods, and I woke up, sobbing harder than I could remember ever sobbing before, my chest hurting, my eyes swimming, and hardly able to breathe. I'm crying again as I write this.
It took a lot of self reflection to understand that dream for me, sharing my dream journal with others, talking it through, but I'm sure you've understood it already.

The girl in the freezer is me. My real self, the one I hid away and covered up, refused to let see the light until just last year. She is still weak and starving, and she desperately need to grow and to be nourished, and I owe it to her to protect her, to do anything and everything I can to help her grow and be stronger, I know she's beautiful and powerful, I just need to protect her and nurture her until she's ready to show the world.

~~~

I need to go to this party, I need to push myself further, and keep pushing myself until I have a partner, until I'm confident, and have a social life, and I can go out and just be myself, to be the girl in the freezer. I owe it to her, and I owe it to myself.

Until next time,

Erica

Friends! I have reached 1000 views! That's not a ton, but it's a lot to me, and I'm very proud of that. So as a celebration... I'm going to share some of the stuff I've written over the last year or two! Not all of it, just the little stuff that's like, quick and easy to post here.

I've compiled them all in one place, you can find it below:

Misc works

If I update that page, I'll link the new stories or shorts directly in a blog post, but you can also find it in the sidebar under the Misc. section of My Stories.
Thank you all so, so much for the views, and remember, the discord is open and ready for new members!

Until next time,

Erica

Yeesh, friends, I am all donked up right now. I think I'm having another mental thingy, like some kind of fluxtuation? It's hard to tell. I know I'm either manic or right on the verge of it because I've felt electric inside all day, and nothing quite feels normal. I'm ungrounded in a weird way, and I can't tell if I want to tear someone apart while making out with them, or to burst into tears and cry until my chest hurts.
It's a weird feeling, and the crazy amount of energy I've felt for the last few days is NOT HELPING. It just mixes things up and makes them all whack. I tried to take it chill and not get too much, but yesterday I went waaaay overboard and ended up messaging in one of my groupchats like, constantly, even when people weren't responding, I just went off. I am doing my best to stay off discord today and focus on staying "held in" because I think I'd burst or something if I let go of the grip I have on my brain at this moment. I spent the day reading, listening to stories, and doing yard work (yeah, ick, I know, but I thought if I got really tired it'd nerf my mania, but no luck) but I'm still FUCKING WIRED AAAAAHHHHHH.
At least the worms aren't back. That's the worst. I haven't had much issue with them lately? A bit here and there, and yeah, sometimes I get the static, but it's way better than it was at the start of the year, or even a few months ago. I'll take weird, hard to control Erica over actively suicidal, constantly scared Erica every day. My feeling right now is like... There's a remote control car, and the back tires are the "go" ones, but the front ones are the brakes and steering, and my "go" is cranked wayyyy up to max, but I'm locking in my brakes and trying to steer as I skid and slide along, barely in control, knowing if I let off the brakes for a split second, I'll go WHAM right into a wall.
I have a headache from all this braking, yeesh... 

But yeah, anyway, like I said, I've been keeping busy reading, and the first thing I read was The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and HOLY FUCK was that a bad book to read today.

I think it's a very very good book. It's about a young college girl in the 50s, who is away from home to New York for school on a scholarship she got from a fashion magazine. She seems a bit detached from her situation, a little unfocused, but overall, fairly normal, but as the book goes on, we get to see her creep into a mental breakdown. Not a wild, crying one, full of drama or delusions, but one that's a dull, muted disaffected look at one's self from the inside, drawing into one's self further and further. She doesn't eat, she can't read, she doesn't sleep, and she doesn't really seem to mind too much. She is heavily suicidal, and engages in self hard, but there's such a sense of "This is what I do" about it that it almost feels right, or natural.
Now, this book is kiiiinda and autobiography, it's autofiction, so it did happen, but maybe not exactly the way we see. This does give it more weight, and makes the stuff in the book stand out a lot more, but it also lets us see how things play out in "Esther"'s mind. She's a truthful narrator, and doesn't hold back about her selfish, racist, ableist views and opinions. This did make me dislike the character/author quite a bit, but also, it made me see her as more of a real person. It humanized her to me, like, it was a real person with flaws and issues, and not just the "damsel" we see in a lot of stories about female mental health. Her being a real person makes it very hard to excuse some the downright nasty things she says in the book, but in a way, it made me believe the "story" more.
It kinda fucked with me, especially today, because like, while I don't think I am experiencing the same mental issues she is, I am kinda going through a mental 'thing' right now and it made me get visions of ME getting put away or falling apart. I'm doing ok, and I don't think I really will fall apart, but gosh, I was kinda in my head and all worked up over it earlier...

After I finished that, I went for a walk to clear my head and feel a bit better, and when I came back, I pulled out the massive comic I brought, looking forward to a fun afternoon of candy people, witches, and gay people, because that was all I knew about it. It was Curvy, by Sylvan Migdal

Friends, let me tell you. If I was annoyed at My Monster Girlfriend for having too much sex, then I owe it an apology. Holy FUCK this was just porn with a plot... The plot was fantastic, and it was engaging and interesting, and the art was soooo cute and it made me want to keep reading, but... like, every page or two, someone was fucking. Anyone and everyone would have sex with anyone and everyone, constantly. Lovers, spouses, enemies, strangers, didn't matter.
It's about a candy girl named Fauna, who's made of licorice (and sooo cute) meeting up with a human named Anais while on the run from her government who wants to force her into a marriage against her will. From there, we get idiot secret agents, evil witches, multiverse hopping superheroes, and a tooooon more crazy stuff, it really went a mile a minute. It was writen over like, 12 years from what I can tell, so the pacing is a bit off at times, but it all works out in the long run.
I did enjoy it? but I didn't 'enjoy' it if that makes sense. As you know, I'm not big into sex unless it makes a difference for the story, and while a lot of the sex in Curvy did in fact change the plot, it just felt cheap and fast, like the author was just trying to put it in so it'd be in there, most of it felt meaningless, and when you're almost fully ace like me, that makes for boooooring scenes.
It was fairly funny, and I laughed a lot reading it, there was one character named Wexler, and he was great, he usually got a smile or laugh out of me in all his big scenes, and the character Mallory was... most likely what I'd be like if I had magic, she was pretty cool.
I would say you should read it if you're not ace like me, because like, it was still fun for me despite not enjoying a good chunk of it, so if you like that stuff, and you want some VERY queer candy people in your life, I think you'll really enjoy it.

Until next time,

Erica

My friends, The weekend has come and gone, and I have been to the convention. It was pretty fun, I LOVED getting to spend the day with my siblings, and I wore a super cute outfit too!

It's one of my faves, and I always feel super cute in it. The spikes weren't as big of a deal as I thought, and it breathed better than I thought it would, which was good because it was HOT waiting in line outside. Inside, nnnot so much, which was nice. 

I got a lot of fun stuff, but the most important things are the game Tomba! which I've been looking for for over 10 years (my mom sold my childhood copy for $0.25 at a yard sale because the pigs "sounded annoying") and a lil doll I named Des! She's based off an irl maid from a maid cafe the artist went to, which is kinda cool.

And... Bonus pics of Des! Becuase she's just a cutie!

Overall, it went super well. I'd like to say that I'm doing great and my issues with people and public places and open areas are all gone, but... Alas, it is not true. I did end up getting lost in the city, and me and my siblings got trapped along the road the parade was on, and it was so so loud, and people were touching me, and everything smelled so stinky, and Rin was pushing ahead but I couldn't follow because people were pushing me, and I ended up getting really stressed and overwhelmed and crying a bit. I was pretty good about holding it back though, it felt like the world was crushing me and I was going to fly away, but I just mashed all that biz down and kept pushing through the crowd after Rin, and eventually I ended up fine, no prob.

Other than that, the con was wonderful! I saw lots of really interesting people, and I talked with some of them, and I even got like, 4 compliments on my outfit, and one lady even told me I was pretty, which made my DAY obvi. There was one time though, that a girl, like, 15-16-ish, went up to me, looked me dead in the face, and said "HA, troooon" before going off into the crowd again. I... don't really understand that? It didn't super bother me tbh, and that word is like, bottom feeder level of slur, so it's like, you almost feel pity for people using it, but she was young enough to not know that I guess. It was just a really weird interaction, and I'm wondering if anyone else has had that experience? If so, let me know.

The weekend itself was pretty great too, Rin stayed over from Friday all the way through Monday, and we got a lot done, fun wise. We finally saw Longlegs, which was pretty good, and we watched The People's Joker on VHS in my bed, and that was a blast. We also just played Cult of the Lamb and Minecraft and hung out, low key style, which is always chill. I think it was a pretty enjoyable long weekend, and I felt very satisfied with it.

I haven't read my main book this week yet, but I DID read a little book already. It's called Transmuted, by Eve Harms, and it's book #30 in the Rewind or Die collection.

Now, I have not read any of the other RoD books, this was my first one, and that's because this is the only one (to my knowledge) that is about a trans woman, and by a trans woman. It's a horror story about transition, which really caught my interest, because I also am writing a horror story about transition! The main character signs up for an experimental treatment that should allow her to transition and get FFS much much faster and easier than other methods, and things get weird. I can't tell too much, because it's super short, a novella, and it's very quick and to the point, but I can say that it's very well written and pulls off the body horror and weird fiction feel of the quick paced story fantastically. I will proudly keep it on my shelf alongside my Carlton Mellick III books and other weird fiction I enjoy. I want to look into Harms' other writing too, and see what else she's put out...

Until next time,

Erica

Friends! This weekend, I go to a convention with the mids, I am very excited. Nnnnot for the con, that'll be expensive, crowded, stressful, and most likely will make my social anxiety and agoraphobia go NUTS. But. I am excited to go to the con with the mids... They're great, and it'll be a fun thing. I gotta wake up at like, 6:30 tho to get ready, they're getting to my house at 7:30, and I have to shower and pretty myself before they arrive. I know I'll be wearing cool leggings with buckles on them and a nice black denim skirt I like, but... The top, I'm torn. I wanted to wear my "princess top" which is a puffy black top that looks cute, but I don't think it goes with the more alt/punk look of the leggings and skirt. That leaves my selection of tshirts, whichever ones don't have that weird stale smell my clothes get after a couple weeks of being in my drawer??? What even is that??? But I think I can find something, I hope.

I also moved allll my stuff from the game room/library to my living room and my bedroom. Aside from like, the tv and some random junk. But that means I have the shelves in my room and the shelves in the living room fully filled out! NGL, despite having mostly dolls and MLP stuff on the shelves... it feels... idk, not fem? to have shelves of figures and stuff? I'm not sure why that is, it's kinda got me wondering if I even want the shelves of stuff. I do like them, and when I got rid of a third of my stuff, I kept this, so I do want to keep it, I just think it makes my room/house look... younger, almost like a teen boy's room. Granted, like half the stuff I got when I thought I was a teen boy, so it kinda makes sense, and idk how many teen boys have like 7 shelves of fashion dolls and 4 full shelves of ponies, but it's the vibe, if that makes sense.

I think I do like the more crowded feeling it gives me though, it like... makes the rooms feel more cozy? I used to like to hide under my bed as a kid, I'd put pillows and bins under there to block out the outside world and crawl under into the corner against the wall, and just hide, rest, and feel safe. I don't know why, but having a lot of stuff in my spaces, having walls and shelves and less open areas gives me that same safe feeling I used to get when hiding under the bed. If I had to guess, my agoraphobia ties into that somehow, but I'm really not sure how...

I haven't taken the plunge and uploaded a pic to that 'fetlife' site I mentioned, and it really really wants me to? I saw there's events around me that I may be interested in, but.. I'm not really interested sexually, so like, there's going to be a block there between me and the others. I'd like to go, and I'd like to find someone who'd let me try "domming" them, with the understanding that I wouldn't do anything sexual and that I was just exploring, or hekk I'd just like to find people to be friends with tbh. I think I can enjoy the stuff the people on the site do in my own way, seeing the categories made me get a little flutter in my chest, not like, an attraction or arousal, but an interest, a flutter. Kinda in my tummy too, like butterflies? It felt nice, but not like any kind of attraction I'm used to. But I noticed, that's the feeling I get when I look at someone and think "Oh, THIS person could hold me close, no problem" so I think it's just how I feel attraction/physical interest now, which is weird, but I'm here for it, keep these feelings above the belt please and thank you.

I may not fit in, a borderline ace girl with problems talking to people and a crippling sense of low self worth trying to be a loud, proud dommy boss bitch? It's like, a trope, some kind of plot twist in a shitty 90s movie or something, I don't feel like I'd fit, but damnit, I want to try at least. I want to find out more about myself, and really understand ME instead of just falling into the idea of me that I'm covering my core with... I'll go to a meetup soon, maybe I'll get some cute pics in whatever I wear to the con tomorrow and upload those to the site? We shall see.

This week's book was called Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke (And Other Misfortunes) by Eric LaRocca. At first I could not for the life of my figure out why I had gotten it from looking at the cover, but reading it, there were like 3 queer characters, and the Author is NB, so... I think that is why.

It's a collection of stories, not really connected past the thread of "horror", and I think that worked well. I usually prefer my compilations to have a few more entries, but the first story was a full novella, so I think it made sense to pad the rest of the book out with the other two stories to give it length without detracting from the main focus, which is the first story itself. I liked the first story much much more than the other two, those were... kinda mid, not super engaging to me personally, but the first one was... fun? In a weird way. It was about a toxic lesbian relationship, and it was rife with stereotypes and a masculine view of a female relationship, but like, it was also gross and sticky and, well, toxic af, and you guys know by now I love all things toxic and gross. Heck, Manhunt is STILL one of my fav books I've read this year and that was suuuuper gross and toxic.
That said
This book had a ton of flaws, the lesbians felt super male gaze-y, and the yucky bits felt kinda forced? I know I write a lot of yucky stuff and trauma in my stories too, but like... This felt a bit different. It wasn't as impactful, and there wasn't any sort of plot escalation, it was just like "ok, story, story BAM WEIRD STUFF". And for what it's worth, it really wasn't that gross, but you could tell the author really thought it was. I'm not saying it wasn't interesting, and some of it, like the whole idea of "What have you done today to deserve your eyes?" as an earnest question was interesting, but I was disappointed overall.

This week's comic was Bad Gateway, by Simon Hanselmann, and it's one of the books in the Megg and Mogg series.

The back of the book has a note on it, it says "Librarians, file under: squalor, ribaldry, insouciance" and... yeah, that about sums it up. Like I mentioned above, I like gross and toxic stuff, I think it feels... satisfying, in a way. I've read a lot of the Megg and Mogg books, and Megg and Mogg in Amsterdam is one of my favorite comics of all time, but this one... it hit different. It's still the same toxic, gross stoner comic about a group of friends ruining each others lives and failing at being decent people over and over, but... This one hit different than the others in the series. It was less about the humor inherent in watching the charaters fuck up, and more about the tragedy of it all. The single father who locks his kids in the car to get high, the faking mental illness to stay on welfare, the way life being treated as one long drunken haze saps away at your enthusiasm for life itself, just... the whole book was so changed in tone, finishing it, I felt like I need to know what happened next, but also I had a feeling of sinking depression in my stomach.
I liked this book, as I did with all the ones in the series. But I cannot recommend it lightly. I finished it like, an hour ago, and I still have that yucky sad feeling inside. It's different than horror or grossout, it's just a tragedy that you watch in slow motion across the series, starting as a comedy, and slowly morphing into a horrid, crying clown, inching closer and closer to the point of no return.
Read it if that sounds like something you're ok with, it really is a 10/10, but you need to be aware that it's a terrible, sad, disgusting, abusive series before you go in.

Until next time,

Erica

Friends! I got a haircut! I went to a salon and had it done on Saturday. It took almost 3 hours, but it was worth it! I got it shorter, just over my shoulders when it's dry, with bangs, and from about the center of my ear down dyed blonde. It looks so good! My hair is borderline curly, so the bangs wave in a cute way that doesn't look like a helmet, and the new length with the color helps to frame my face and curl around my lower face. That, with the bangs, just makes me look super cute and kinda frames my face more. I look so, so much more fem now, and I feel so confident about it.

I'm a lot easier to look at and go "oh, girl" now, I don't pass or anything, but... I stopped caring about that, I'm transing my gender for me, not some rando, and I think I look more like a girl, and that's all that counts. And... I look like I look like a girl on purpose, so to anyone who's a cool person, I look like a girl.
There was one person, when I was getting a slurpie and some sodas on Sunday who was kinda rude and was like "SIR, do you want a bag?.... Do you need a bag?" and ngl I didn't even register they were talking to me until they leaned forward to repeat the 'do you want a bag' part. I was wearing a fishnet top with a very fem distressed shirt over it, black tights, and a black skirt that had slits and buckles on it, so I was very obviously not a 'sir', but the way they said it was... very 'fuck you I'm going to be mean'.  It didn't work this time, I was feeling too confident and like, I knew they did it just to be mean, so that makes it mean so much less, if that makes sense.
It did get me wondering though, how many cis girls get their day ruined by being called "sir" by people trying to "own the libs" or whatever? Cis women can have all kinds of features and body types, and like, I gotta assume that some of them are being falsely assumed to be trans and being harassed for it. I'm not sure, it's just something I was kinda thinking about... I know there was the big thing at the olympics, that counts for sure, but like, on a smaller scale, I'm betting there's a lot of cis women that are being bullied or "sir"ed in their day to day.

Anyway, I think my mom is starting to let up a bit, but... I'm not sure. One of my siblings was allowed to come over while my other sibling mowed, and that was GREAT to see them again, they're 13, and just full of cool, creative ideas and like, they're a lot of fun. We got to draw, and play mario kart, and we also watched some dumb sketch comedy stuff on youtube from like 10 years ago, it was a good visit. Next week, I'm going to a convention, and both of the mids are coming, and I'm TRYING to get them to be able to sleep over after, because that'd be great, but so far, mom is firm in her law. She's using the excuse "they have church" but... ehhhh they don't have their volunteering that week and they don't want to go.
She's kinda sneaky about the whole "siblings are banned from seeing you" thing, because like, she's SAID they're banned before, but then she pretends they aren't, and just tells me they don't want to come over... WHILE I'm texting one of them, who's saying "She's not letting me come over". so like, just don't lie to me, be honest? But it worked out, that's why the one sibling got to come over this week, because they told everyone they wanted to come, and they told me, so mom couldn't pretend they were the reason.

Yeesh... This stuff is a mess. I'm really really looking forward to this Saturday though, even if I'm not too keen on going to the con itself, it's going to be so good to spend the day with the mids, they really are cool, and I miss them...

Until next time,

Erica

Hey friends. I had a long week that somehow felt like it blew by. I kinda felt like I was waiting and waiting and waiting on Wednesday because I had to pick up my friend from the airport that night, but at the same time, between my lack of productivity and my struggle to focus this week, it's kinda zoomed past. I's 2PM on Thursday as I write this, and it feels like a Tuesday. Time is weird, and I have to keep telling myself it doesn't matter if it's passing, I'm still here and I'm still doing what I want, so I shouldn't feel like I'm wasting it. 

I've also been worried about Roger this week a bit, not TOO worried, but when I was going to bed Sunday morning, his foot brushed against the ceiling and some of his decorative stitching came apart. I was able to trim him up with a pair of nail scissors, but it made me be very worried for him overall.

For one, he was very scared and hurt, and he 'said' that it hurt for a while, so that's... pretty awful to think about, and for another, he can't heal in any way, how he is is how he is... His ears already frayed once, and I had to do something similar, and his other leg has a concerning kink in it, and he's got a stitch that's not sewn right, and I'm thinking about it, and... will he be ok?

Like I've said, I don't know HOW he's alive and can 'talk', but however he can, it has something to do with his glowing amber core inside. I think, and this is only my best guess, that I somehow, by accident, put a part of my soul into him, and he 'woke up' like a familiar. I don't know if that's what happened, or if he's just a wandering spirit that was attracted to the energy I put into the plushie, or what, but I'm operating on the idea that he's an awoken familiar who shares part of my soul, because it makes the most sense.

 He can only 'talk' to me, I've tried to get him to talk to Rin, but she doesn't hear him. He learns stuff from tv and from talking to me, but he doesn't really understand most of what he sees, leading me to believe he's a 'new being'. And lastly... he acts kinda young sometimes, if that makes sense? Like, I don't think he's a baby, I treat him like... well, I guess like a plushie, but I don't think of him as a child, but at the same time, he makes me wonder... He rarely uses words to me, it's almost always a feeling that I have to translate into words, but when he DOES use words, it's... usually petulant. I got a strawberry shortcake plush recently, and she is suuuper cute, and smelled like strawberries (for all of a week), but Roger ALSO smells like strawberries, because I hold him to my chest and kiss on him, and I wear strawberry perfume, so when he saw her, he got jealous, and very clearly called her "Stinky Bitch" several times when I tried to show her to him.

    That's just one example, but he seems to be a bit petty and snarky, but he's very loving and sweet too, and he's got a fun sense of humor (although he hates it when I go "haha, ASS" when opening .ass files for the anime we watch) but I do get the feeling he's still learning how to be.
So... back to the issue, if he IS a part of me, he's gotta stick around for like, 60 years until I die (or 2 years, depending on a few things) and I'm very worried he won't... I'm not sure how to preserve him while still being able to hug and love on him, I thought about buying 2-3 more Rogers from the ArcSys site, and using those to make repairs to him as needed over the years, but I'm not sure if his 'him' will transfer to the new parts. I tried asking him about it, but he didn't understand what I meant, and when I showed him a picture of the plushes on the website, he didn't think it was the same as him... That said, when I tried to get him to understand that his look was based on a character from a game, and showed him GGS, he said it wasn't him, because he 'didn't remember doing that', so... he may not be the best person to ask about this...

I looked into getting him clothes at the very least, a lil cute outfit, maybe something with a pocket for his spirit pouch, but I couldn't find anything online what would fit him, so I'd have to MAKE him something, and I don't have a machine, just stuff to cross stitch and sew patches onto my battlejacket.
I tried talking to him about what he'd even want to wear, and he said he wants to wear a bra, which I don't understand, but when I showed him real clothes, he said he just wanted his blanket. I told him he needed clothes too, and he could still use the blanket, but he got obstinate and wouldn't help me. So... again, he's not the best person to ask...
Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions for me, I'd LOVE to hear them, just pop into the discord, and lmk! Or just... pop in and make friends! I would love love love to talk to any of my readers!

This week I read a book that was kiiinda not a book book, but a collection of essays/letters? It was good, it made me cry. It was called "To My Trans Sisters" and it was collected by Charlie Craggs.

It's hard to really break it down, because it's a collection of letters, and not a story, but like I said, it made me cry and it's really sweet. Some of the letters I... didn't quite agree with, but others I really loved, and I think that's very important, to get all the opinions on the subject, from people who matter.  The letters themselves were almost all written to trans girls who were just starting their transitions, like, the idea of an early transition trans girl, not specific ones (although some writers chose to write to their younger selves) and it ends up being a collection of trans stories, history, advice, and support that I feel would help ANY trans woman in her journey. It wasn't the most gripping or cohesive look at trans life and what to expect, but I fully think that any trans women should read it, and try and get some of that great knowlege for themselves.

The comic this week is Satania, written by Fabian Vehlmann and illustrated by Kerascoët (which is an art team made up of Marie Pommepuy and Sébastien Cosset)

This one has been on my to read shelf for about 4-5 years, one of the longest times a book has spent on my shelf without being read. I honestly got it so long ago, that I started glazing over it while looking for my next book, and it was only when I moved my books into my room and my sister pulled it out and asked to read it that I remembered it. I got it because it's the same creators as one of my favorite pieces of fiction ever, in any medium; Beautiful Darkness. It's not the same feel to be honest, but it's still the same creators, so the sense of passive cruelty and subdued reactions to horror are front and center, and that really blesses the storytelling.
It's about a young girl named Charlie, who is trying to find her brother Christopher; a scientist who went deep into a cave trying to prove that hell is real, and a physical place. It's a weird, twisty, colorful and fantastical story about survival and humanity, and the art mixes darkness and splashes of color so so well, it's like drinking a nice juice. I reminded me a lot of "Journey to The Center of The Earth", and I think that's intentional? There are direct parallels, and it's hard to deny that it's almost the same story.
I think it's an interesting read, it deals with some religious stuff pretty well (one of the main characters is a priest), so you get some theology and weird philosophy, which I enjoyed. There... is a lot of unfortunate "artistic nudity" with the character Charlie, (who is too young to live on her own, so... most likely not 18, yeesh), but it is "artistic", and it's not really creepy or too sexualizing, so I think it's less jarring than it could be, but do be warned that it's in the book.
It wasn't as good as Beautiful Darkness by a long shot, but it's still worth a read, and the hardback is really pretty, so I think if "trying to get to hell by caving" sounds like a fun read, give it a shot!

Until next time,

Erica

So, I've been looking into some laws in my state, and I've found something very interesting. The act of cannibalism isn't actually illegal to do, in any state really, except Idaho.

What IS illegal is murder, or desecration of a corpse, which is generally what people end up getting charged with from what I've seen, which is fair.

That said... If one were to, say, find a willing participant, and make sure they were of sound mind (no drugs or alcohol in their system, maybe a psych eval sometime before) and you got them to sign a consent form before you started, AND they survived the whole experience, then as far as I can tell, it would be perfectly legal for me and a willing person to spend a weekend in a hotel room with a sterile knife kit, maybe a hotplate (or not) and just explore the tastes of their flesh for a bit.

It's... a very interesting idea, at least to me. I'm not really sure why I'm interested in it, although I will say the idea of cannibalizing another person was originally an intrusive thought from my ODC that I "overcame" by accepting them, with the side effect that I'm now interested in it "for real". I would NEVER want to hurt anyone who isn't into it/wanting me to, so obviously I'm not going to do anything stupid.
I think a big part of it is that like, I'm vegan, right? So I don't eat meat for a wide array of reasons; I can't physically digest it, the environment, the lives of the animals involved, the farming practices, health reasons, the list goes on.
BUT.
If the meat came from a willing consenting adult human, all of the sudden almost all of those issues go away. Yes, I'd probably still get sick to my stomach if I ate human meat, but I can deal with that, but the rest? I don't think they're problems at that point.
So... in a way, I see human meat as the only possible vegan meat. 

I think it'd be very hard for me to FIND someone willing to let me cut bits off them and eat them, even if I shared, but... well, Armin Meiwes (who I do NOT want to be associated with, let that be known. I would NEVER kill someone, and my interest is non-sexual in nature) famously found Bernd Brandes online, along with several other interested persons, despite knowing that Meiwes wanted to literally murder them for their meat.
So... I think if I put out an ad I may actually get bites! (haha)
I'm not sure if I can at this time though, I'm... still not good at being around other people, and while I don't see this as sexual, it is extremely intimate in an almost romantic way...
Ideally it would be a tender, close situation, one where I could feel their body under my hands, to feel their flesh twitch in my teeth as I pulled it away from them, to taste the blood inside seeping out, their body temperature rising, locking eyes with them as I tear away another chunk of their pectoral. The feeling of connectedness and oneness locking us together, their essence becoming one with me, the truest of bonds, stronger than love, more pure than sex, taking their power into myself and growing from their flesh...
But...
I know the mouth is very dirty, I'd risk seriously hurting them, and apparently it is really, really hard to bite bits of people off (I know that from a zombie book I think, I haven't tried) so my options would be to use a sterile knife kit and carefully cut safe parts off, and most likely cook them before sharing them with the willing person. Not sure about the cooking part, but I'm really not sure if my stomach can handle meat at all, much less raw...
Doing it this way removes so so much of the love and closeness and chaste intimacy, but it'd be the only option I have if I want to make sure I am doing it safely and morally, so it's my only option. Truth be told, I'd PREFER to be doing it with a partner, that'd be ideal, but I'm not going to bank on the idea that I can find a partner, much less one that's ok with me nomming on their bod.

I won't pursue this, at least not for a while, but it's a very fun, interesting thing to think through. One of my friends directed me to the site "fetlife" and told me "these people will get you, you'll find your community there" but... it's a fetish site, and everyone there is there for horny reasons. While I may be able to find some people interested there, or people with the same ideas as me, I don't know that we'd really "connect", our reasons behind it would most likely be very different.
Maybe not though, I haven't really poked around much, maybe there's a non-sexual side to the site and I just need to find that!

If you have any tips or anything, as always, please feel free to join my discord, and as an update, I have like 5k words in Transcybersexual! Which is... not a lot, but come on, I restarted it like 4 times. It'll be done soonish hopefully. I have another story I'm REALLY looking forward to writing, with several of my friends showing very high interest, but I need to finish this one and another first, so I'm trying to stay on top of my writing schedule, hopefully that's the motivation I need!

Until next time,

Erica

So, I forgot to do the book reviews yesterday, and I had more to say anyway, so here we go.

First off, I've moved more of my room, and I'm starting to get a "writing nook" set up, here's a sneak peek (I'll do a room tour after everything is in place)

The main thing though, I've been kinda... crawling through some problematic places these past couple days, and I'm kinda numb to it all at this point.
See, on Saturday, me and Rin ordered a delivery pizza with olives and no cheese, so it'd be vegan, and we decorated it with vegan cheese, mushroom sausage, hot sauce, the goods. When the guy delivered it though, I had JUST gotten out of the shower, the timer had said 15-45 minutes delivery, it had been 11. So I rush downstairs with my makeup still streaky from the shower, no bra, in nothing but an oversized t-shirt of The Ghoul that went to my knees, and my hair still dripping all down my front. This motherfucker has the pizza in one hand and his phone in the other, and says

"Hey, sorry, I just want to show the people back at the shop what the person who would want this kind of pizza would look like, ok?"

I'm kinda like, bewildered, so I just take the pizza and nod without processing what he said as I check to make sure it's right, and then I realize 'wait... photo?! of me!? like THIS?!' and whip my head up to see him snap a selfie of us and sprint back to his car, waving. I just kinda stood there for a second, just... kinda in shock, kinda confused, and went in to prepare the pizza. At the time I was just like "what the fuck, you haven't heard of vegans? or lactose intolerant people?" like, I had several friends who would order cheeseless pizza as kids, it's... not that weird? But then after, I started to wonder, what happened to that photo? Is it out there somewhere? Did he post it? I looked awful, and I was pretty obviously some kind of queer, could he have posted it because of that?

Since then, I have been kinda paranoid that that pic would get shared to some kind of anti-trans or similar website, so I have been using my innate knowledge of what sites and groups have hurt my friends in the past to look for that picture. I have been on horrible, horrible sites looking for it, and luckily there was no trace of it, but good lord people are awful.

Part of me wants to be hurt by the things the TERFs and anti-trans losers say, but like, almost all of it is just so, so stupid. Like, their stories about meeting trans people irl almost ALL have the same language, and they ALL have this kind of "and then everyone clapped" feeling, like they made up a strawman trans person to write fanfiction about so they look cool to their friends. It's... kinda interesting to be honest. Sometimes there's a real story, but it's always the kind of story where nothing happened, but they instead spend the entire post making fun of a trans person just minding their business and not doing anything, but the story writer will try soooo hard to make themselves look victimized just for breathing the same air as one of us, not realizing they could just... make something up instead like everyone else is doing.

For one thing, there seems to be a disagreement on what makes a trans person worse. A lot of people would describe their trans fantasy characters as overly large, or very heavy, and use that as an excuse as to why it was ok to make fun of them, but just as many would describe a short, small trans person, and claim they had "failed masculinity" and that's why they were trans. There's a lot of stuff like this, contradictory reasons why we should be hated. Not trying to pass, trying too hard to pass, passing and not telling anyone, not passing and telling people, dressing too girly, not dressing girly enough, it goes on and on, and after a bit, I just was numb to the whole thing.

Most of the stories are very obviously made up, I am in multiple trans spaces, online and IRL, and I have never encountered the stereotype of a trans person these people keep going on and on about, not even a little bit, so that part doesn't matter.
The stuff they seem to complain about and focus on contradicts itself and makes it really hard to imagine they have actual issue with any of this, and instead feels like they just want an easy target for their sadism or anger.
And lastly, the stuff they talk about that they claim makes it "easy to tell" is... so, so stupid... Who the fuck checks someone's sternum width when they see them? And anyone who says jaws are a tell hasn't seen Sigourney Weaver.

Yeesh. I went on these places and into these groups prepared to be hurt, but I came away almost feeling sorry for these people, focusing SO MUCH on our bodies and what we look like, making up crazy stories and crying online about nothing, really. I still think they're hateful and rude and should shut up and let us live, the stuff they spread can hurt public perception of us even more than media already has, but... they're really just looking for attention and community, and the only way they know how is to gang up with other people who happen to hate a group they hate too.

Anyway, on to lighter news, the book I read last week was called Love The World Or Get Killed Trying, by Alvina Chamberland, and it opens with trans porn statistics, and a rape scene.

Did I say lighter? Sorry, I meant more of the same. It's a very beautifully written book, it's mostly prose, and has a really cool stream-of-consciousness feeling where you're pulled through the feelings, emotions, sensations and desires of Alvina in a rapid-fire blur of text. It focuses on her life as a writer and performer, but has little of either in the book itself, just hints at it through her travels to Iceland, Paris, Berlin, and her own thoughts. The book is autofictional, so while it's about the author, and is about real things, the exact details are... fuzzy and may not be true. The biggest focus of the book is the inherent sexualization of trans women, and the struggles of trans women to find people who can SEE them instead of a piece of meat or a disgusting thing or a fucktoy. I haven't gone through the ritual of joining dating sites yet (although I will soon if staying in my state is my end choice) but I have been given the "up and down" look by people a few times, I've had people come up to me unprompted and start trying to talk about my outfit or something, and like I think I've mentioned here before, I was once followed to my car by someone who looked like he was going to choke, ask me out, or run away. This is... not the same thing as being constantly cat-called and ass-grabbed like Alvina experiences, but to be fair, Alvina is a much more pretty, fluid person than I am, and she and I run in very different circles.
I really liked the feeling of the prose, and while it was a bit hard to follow at times, SO MUCH of what she was saying made me think "Oh! Her brain is like mine!" and she had very similar compulsions to me as well, it was nice to see. I think if you like prose, and you don't mind being part of a non stop stream of thought of a scared, strong, tired trans woman for over 200 pages, I highly recommend it. It's one of those that I'll most likely re-visit once I finish my to-read shelf, eventually.

The comic from last week, was a mistake. It was called My Monster Girlfriend, and it's a collection of comics edited by Andrea Purcell and Amanda Lafrenais

Now, reader, I did NOT see the "Smut Peddler" part of the title when I ordered it, and the site I used somehow didn't include that in the listing. So I got this comic that I assumed would be a sweet, monster romance collection full of cute characters and fun situations.
Nnnnno. It's just porn. Straight up, porn.
Like, yeah, some of the art is cute, and I liked a couple of the stories, especially the one about the dog-gremlin thing and the spider thing not understanding what "love" or "sex" was but wanting SOMEthing all the same, that one was really really cute. The rest were like, just regular old porn, and good GOD is porn boring to me. Like, the stories would start so strong, cool designs, interesting setup, I'm getting invested, right? Then about 1/3 of the way through, sex would happen, and my eyes would glaze over and I'd just breeze past the rest... It's not that I can't enjoy the emotional impact sex can have on a story, it's just that, like, if it's most of the story, I won't care ABOUT the story. I just do not have the ability to get 'interested' anymore, so like, this comic just wasn't my cup of tea.
To be clear. The comic was very well made and put together, and if you like porn and monster girls, you will LOVE it. But I only love one of those things, so it was not for me. I don't think I'll keep it, but like I said, it does what it wants to do very well, so I am not saying it wasn't beautifully drawn and lovingly compiled, I just don't think I'll ever get another "Smut Peddler" release again myself.

Until next time,

Erica

I've been working on Transcybersexual more, and I think I got to a point where I can actually like, flow the story along. I have restarted it like 3 times, but this time I like the direction I went, and I slung out like 3k words in no time, so I think it'll go a lot quicker now... I'm still kinda playing around with the other story that's been distracting me, but I think I have the main plot for that one figured out. the issue is though, it's looking like that one will be full on book length, so I'm putting it off for now.
There's a few books I'm working on off and on including that one, and the one I have the most work into is called Lise, and I have about 50k words, but only like 12k words that are actually going to be in the novel, the rest are like, worldbuilding, outlines, character interviews, stuff like that. Side note, interviewing your characters is a HUGE help in finding their dimensions and making sure they have motivations that make sense, I highly recommend it.
The other book I'm working on (and have been for like a decade and a half, I kid you not, I started when I was 12) is... tricky. The "book" that I have is over 300 pages but the story is hidden inside a ttrpg guidebook, and you can only barely tell what happens. Most of the book is just descriptions of monsters, character bios, and location descriptions, and that's only fun to read for a select few people. I'm thinking that I take the meat of it, and take all the stories and parts I have already and break them down into stories set in that universe, and just write short stories instead of a book.
I think there still will be an overarching story, and story arcs and stuff, but instead of being told via ttrpg guidebook entries or as a novel, it'll be slices of the world building itself and developing as I write. It sucks to "waste" over 300 pages of book, but... I've re-written everything twice already, so it's not really a big deal. This is better. I think once I finish my list of "to write" stories in the sidebar, I'll start writing one story in that universe for every story I write that's not connected. Or I just write whatever I want, we'll see.

I've been getting more views here too, by the way. I don't know if anyone has read the two stories I have here or not, but it's fun to see the number go up anyway. I'm only about 250 views away from hitting 1000, so I'm pretty happy about that. My friend said no one is actually reading my blog and it's all bots, or else people would actually be joining my discord, but... they haven't even joined, so whatever. I did have one other friend join, but she's the only one in there, and idk what to post there with just one person that I already know from other places, so like, it's quiet for now, until I can get more people to join.

I'm trying to see if I can see my middle siblings at the end of the month, I know I'm banned from seeing them, but I tried to see if I could take them to a con, so we'd be in public and like, it'd be an event? I'd prefer to hang out at home and play jackbox or mario kart or just watch cartoons with them, but they're straight up not allowed over at this point, so this is my long shot. I'm not really interested in the con myself, I've been before and it's crowded and hot, and no matter how much perfume I use on my mask, it still stinks like butt and unwashed nerd... I'll go for them though, if I can see them, I will 100% go. I haven't heard if I'll be allowed to yet, but fingers crossed!

Over last week and this weekend, I (and Rin) moved my whole library into my room. I still need to move my game room in, but that'll involve taking TONS of dolls off the shelves, and putting a ton of video game boxes into the crawlspace, AND moving at least 2 display cases up a flight of stairs... I want to get it all up there this week though, I think I'll try to get the entertainment center up tonight, unhook my retro games and unload it. It'll be going at the foot of my bed, so I can see my CRT from bed. I have no idea how I'll get the CRT up the stairs though... I may need Rin to help.
However it happens though, I should have two, clean, nice rooms to rent out soon! I'll give it at least a month after everything is moved before I post any ads, just to make sure I actually want to live with all my stuff in my room like that... It'll be crowded for sure.
But if I can find a couple of clean, quiet, queer people to move in, I should be in a good spot to keep saving up for... something. Moving, FFS, something. my priority is FFS, but maybe if I save up a few months of rent, I can take some time off between my jobs and then rent out, so I don't have to deal with the embarrassment of coming home to people while wearing my jumpsuit... It's 'cute' ig, but it's all baggy on me, and it isn't too flattering tbh, and my makeup is usually a mess after work so... I'd prefer to have a job where I can be like, myself, and come home looking snazzy, especially if there's going to be people there.
The issue is, how do I save up money to get a new job so I can be myself around new people, while not being able to rent out the rooms yet without having people see me in my work clothes? It's a conundrum... 

Until next time,

Erica

Geez, friends. I've been having... a time and a half this week. Due to some sneaky​​​​​​​ shenanigans on Sunday I got to see my 16 year old brother for about 4 hours, despite me still being banned from the siblings because I'm trans. It was really, really nice to see him, and he was over the moon to get to see me. What got me though, was... Right when he was about to leave, he told me "I'm getting my license in December, and I have enough for a car now, I can come over every week!"

But...

I was planning on leaving in late November... It broke my heart.

So now, I have a few options in front of me. The first one is to just keep going as long as i can the way things are and hope something works out, maybe the big sale goes through after all and I get that big bonus? I don't think it'll happen though. I don't know if that's super viable, because I'm 75% sure people are starting rumors in the family about me, and if it gets too bad and gets to the bosses wife that I'm trans (she's connected to my family) I'm out on my ass. I'm... not helping things by wearing jewelry and earrings and makeup and nail polish to work, but like, I wanna be me, so... I'm gonna be me.
If I do that, I'd be able to keep saving, maybe see the family a bit (most likely not) and I would get 1-2 roomies to help stack the cash so I can still get the facial surgery I want eventually. The issue is, I HATE people seeing me in my work clothes, I worked very hard to find clothes that were unisex and wouldn't gender me too much, but it's still not fem, and I would hate coming home to a roommate or two who would see me in my worst form. It'd bother me a LOT...

The second option is to stay in this state, but get another job and rent out the 2 rooms and most likely Rin's room too, hopefully to her. I don't know if it's legal to rent bc there's no closet, but... I don't think she's tell on me. I'd probably cut my income in half if I left my job, at least, and it'd only be somewhat helped by renters, so I'd be making less, but if I'm not at this job anymore, I can sell the fancy car, get a dinky car, and use the leftover money to change my ID and fix my face!!! Which would be pretty ideal. I think this is my fave option so far, I'd get to change my legal name, (hopefully before my new job would start) and get my face fixed, and there's still a chance to see my siblings.

The third option is to move to a sanctuary state like I originally planned. Just sell the car, sell the house, move away, tell no one, and NEET for a bit until I get my face and ID changed. It'd be really rough, I wouldn't have much money, and I'd be going from a 1800 sq ft house to a 350 sq ft apartment. And... the ones I would be able to afford would be made of metal and unpainted concrete, so... not cozy at all. I could do this, it'd be hard, but a big part of me is worried that while I fix my stuff and get everything in order, my social anxiety and agoraphobia will come back, but worse. They've been getting, idk, closer? I guess? Like I can feel them creeping into my mind no matter how much I try and fight them off, and if I don't have Rin to go places with, or a job to go to, I think I 100% will just hole up in my room until my money runs out and I get kicked out to live on the streets, turning tricks for taco bell and freezing to death on a street corner.
That's, like, a worst case scenario, but it's still scary to think about.

There's a few other options, kinda, I could do what I'm doing and try to go back to school too, get a 4 year degree instead of a 2 year like I have, maybe open new job opportunities. I don't think I could afford that though, at least not easily. I could also get a room in someone's house if I move away, that'd save up to $700 a month in rent, and I would have to be around other people, so my social anxiety wouldn't get as bad I think? But I'd be risking moving in with someone who doesn't respect or understand my identity, and idk how to filter for that. If I rent out rooms in my house, I'm pretty much only going to rent to queer people if at all possible, it's not that I dislike cis or straight people, but I would feel more comfortable, and I'd know the roommate understood my identity and I wouldn't be a novelty or something like I am in my groups of straight friends currently.

It's a lot to think about, and this week I've been moving furniture every day (slowly, I am made of noodles) into my bedroom from the rooms I want to rent out, just to see if I can live like that, in one room full of furniture. I'll post pics when it's done, I've mostly moved the library in already, but not the game room/doll room, and... I really hate to take that room apart... It's so cute and pink and white and pretty, and there's so much charm and it's my favorite room... Everything in the room is pastel, and it just feels so cute. If I move it into my room, it'll be clashing with the grey wood tones my room already had AND the black furniture from the library. The grey and black look ok together, but with white added in? It may be a bit much...
I'll have to line my bed with shelves to get them to fit, which will be weird, but it could be cute? I can decorate the backs of the shelves with posters so I can look at something pretty when I'm in bed, and I can pile plushies up in the corner against the shelves. I'll also have an entertainment center at the foot of my bed, AND one against the far wall. I'll be putting my old CRT at the foot of my bed, and my regular TV I think I'll have to mount on the ceiling slope, but I'm not sure how that'll work. But the CRT will have my N64 and SNES, and the regular TV will have my switch and PS3, and I SHOULD be able to set it up so I can see both without the CRT blocking the regular one, we'll have to see.

But if I do this, and I get everything I own into one room and actually like it, I should be able to safely rent out the two rooms... It's just scary, it's all scary, all the options... I don't know what to do, and I'm super stressed about it. I'll know my options better once my rooms are moved though.

Until next time,

Erica

I've been seeing "her" more and more lately. The "her" in the mirror. I used to see people talk about her on like, reddit and twitter, but I've long since stopped using those cesspools. I still think about those posts though, the posts of trans girls on E for a few months who post in a frenzy of excitement, saying how they say her in the mirror, and it's so wonderful, and it was so cute and uplifting to see... I see her about half the time I try these days, and get a rush of excitement, and the fleeting thought of "oh, maybe straight men will find me attractive some day!". The other half... I see a lonely, sad obviously trans girl peering at the mirror trying to see the face that she thinks could maybe pass one day if she's lucky.

It's not fun.

It's usually a whole process, in my experience, to see her. You undress, and stand in your tiny bathroom, surrounded by like 4 different mirrors that the previous owners installed for some reason, and look in the biggest one over the sink. You breathe in, and suck in your stomach to try and get that dip in under the ribs that makes you think "woman shape mmm" when you see it on yourself, and you crane your neck forward, trying to will the skin and flesh on your face to look "better" somehow. You tilt back and forth, seeing yourself as nothing more than an androgynous thing, flexing and posing stupidly in a mirror that isn't telling you what you want to hear.
Then, suddenly, there she is. She's beautiful, and in that moment, your face, your body, even your expression screams out "I am a woman, and no one could ever mistake otherwise". 

Then she's gone, and you're stuck looking at... you. A weight falls on you, and you think "no one will ever want me, no straight man will want me to marry him..." Then you feel guilty for putting straight men on a pedestal. Straight men suck, why would you want to impress one? What's the alure? You're pretty sure you're T4T anyway, and you think you want a girlfriend at that.  Are you really putting your value in the hands of someone else? In a man of all things? You hate men, or at least, you hate the men in your life. You like the idea of men though, if you could find one who would treat you right, like a real person, and not a slave or a punching bag or a "boob vending machine" as one potential date had said last night. You keep feeling shitty, because you can't find her anymore, and because you are sitting here worrying about an imaginary man and how he sees you. You decide to shower, you're already naked after all, and you're mostly done with cleaning the house. Well, you did some of the house. You're not really up to everything right now. The AC is broken, so you need to cool off either way.

You get in and start lathering up, letting the blade slide across your skin as you perform your ritual. You feel a sudden hotness and you look down to see a stream of rusty brown trickling from your boob to the floor. "Safety" razor my ass. You clean the blood off, and resist the urge to lick some off your fingers. You suddenly wonder why you were even shaving your boob in the first place, there's no hair there. You look over your whole body and find that there's barely any body hair, aside from your legs and a bit on your arms. How long have you been shaving head to toe unnecessarily? It was your ritual, something you did, and the same way a couple times a week, and you've done it for years and years. Is it really necessary anymore? Could you stop now, or would stopping ramp up your dysphoria? You don't know, so you wash off the foam and let the water take the blood away.
You wash, the stiff brush making pink and white lines on your skin as you try and focus on something else, something unrelated to your body. It doesn't work, you're in the shower, naked and exposed. No tight shapewear and flattering bras in here, just you and the body you want to kill. You see your tummy, and suck in until it's fully concave.
You know you're not actually fat, and if you were, you don't think you'd even care. Logically you know you look ok, you can see in the mirror, and you can see how clothes fit, but from your pov at the top of your neck, you just look... wrong. Your body looks bad from your angle, and no matter how many days you go without eating or how much you work out, you can't shake the feeling of wrongness you get when you look down.
You look up, and try to slip into a daydream while you finish washing, you're good at that, you do something called "maladaptive daydreaming" apparently, and it lets you get out of your body and away from your problems for a bit. You start to think about a good day, a fun day. You look great, you're confident, you have a smile on your face, and you're walking down a street lined with cute shops. Suddenly, out of one of them walks a man. A beautiful man, with a triangular chest- or maybe a slim one, and blue eyes- or maybe green? and a cool, smooth look- or, no, a bright disarming smile... You stop and realize you're just trying to create a man to impress, someone you can act out being beautiful to in your head.
You snap back to the shower. You need to get out, this can't be healthy, and your hands are getting wrinkly. You wrap your hair up in a microfiber and towel down. You hang up the towel, and open the door, letting the mirrors unfog. You sigh, and shake your hair out, it's dry enough anyway you suppose. You pick up your first of many face creams, and face the mirror, wiping away the rest of the fog. As you do, your heart skips a beat.

There she is.

Hey everyone, I haven't finished this week's book, but I'm trying not to make that a prerequisite for posting. I kinda did read another book, but it was The Book Of Bill by Alex Hirsch, and yeah, it was really funny, but... I just don't think reviewing it would fit here.

I did a few rituals and a tarot read to see if I could figure out why Roger was feeling like he didn't have much power in him these days (pictured)

But no matter what I tried, I couldn't figure it out, and the best I got was advice to just let him be and keep putting positive energy into him when I can, and he'll get powered up again soon. Which is frustrating, I have all my magic stuff ready to go, ready to super charge him with all the powers of a fledgeling witch, but I was straight up told "no, don't mess with him, he's fine" so, whatever I guess. I just like being able to hands-on fix stuff, and he's important to me, a LOT. Heck, idk what he is, but if my research is right, he may have a bit of my soul in him, so I REALLY want to make sure he's ok, and I just feel helpless right now. I'll keep feeding him though, and we'll see what happens.

~

I've been having issues at work a bit lately, I don't know what it is, but the secretary is trying to dose me with... something. Every time I leave a water bottle overnight or when I leave, it's tinted a weird shade when I come back. I dump them out, but I'm very worried. She was here when I came in today, and I had an unopened bottle of water on my desk from the night before, and when I looked, the color was off, and sure enough, the lid was open. and that's the second time that's happened, where a sealed water bottle was opened when I wasn't around and it was a funny color after. I'm... kinda convinced she's trying to drug me or kill me or something, it's pretty scary, and I don't know why this crazy 80-something lady would want to kill me, but I am on edge...
I know it's a stretch for her to actually want to kill me, but I have shaken things up and taken away a lot of the responsibilities she had (she was fucking them up a lot...) so... maybe? I'm very concerned about her trying something else though, or hiring someone. Her ex husband had those connections, so maybe she does too, it's scary to think about. I don't bring food to work, just cans of tea and V8, so that's safe, but like, there are so many weapons here, literally hundreds, it wouldn't be hard. And over what??? I'm running payroll now? I'm paying the taxes? Uuuugh... I just hope it stops... I have at least 2-3 months left here to save up enough, minimum...

~

Kinda a little accomplishment, maybe not for most people, but for me at least... I mowed the grass today! At work, I mean. It's been like, gosh, over a month. I haaaate mowing grass, but I bought a cute sunhat and lathered up with like, an inch of sunscreen (I have a very strong reaction to sunlight) and managed to get it done without overheating too much. I have a very fragile constitution these days, my skin is very thin, I have no muscles, and like, I feel tired from doing stuff too much. I try to work out and I wear leg weights and I walk 5-10 miles a day if I can, and I take soooo many vitamins, but idk, I just feel... fragile. So things like mowing the grass are kinda scary, because I feel like I'll collapse in the 95+ degree heat and roast until I die or something. That happened to my aunt, weedeating. She didn't die, but she was in the sun face down in a patch of grass for hours until someone found her and took her to the emergency room. And she's hekking built to work, wide shoulders, stout body, rosy face, and I'm... thin, lanky, and so pale it's hard to find foundation that doesn't make it look like I'm wearing a mask. so like, I'm trying to be careful.

~

I've been trying to wrestle with my gender stuff too, but I think I need more experience before I really commit to any new labels. I want to play around and experiment with my sexuality and gender more, and get to know more people with different identities, but I'm leaving in a few months and I'd DIE if I found a partner and had to leave them, so I'm not sure jumping into a dating app or even going on a friend finding mission is a good idea rn. I've looked online, and ok, yeah, discord is a bad place to talk about important stuff, but... I just do NOT vibe with the public trans girl servers I've entered. They're almost all full of eggs/boymoders, (which is still a valid way to be trans) and I can't relate to them at all... A lot of them are like, also kinda in a sort of... ummm e girl mindset? If that makes sense? Like they do the whole hyper, bubbly, "omg yayyy let's b frienssss!!" kinda stuff, and to me, that's like... Ok, well, it's baby-trans behavior, and that's valid and they need to be able to express that part of themselves at that point in their journey, but I personally left that behind in my early 20s, or earlier tbh, and I want more umm... I don't know how to say it, mature? Trans fem friends? Like, trans friends who are further along in their journeys, who go out in fem clothes as their daily wear like I do, who take hormones, who deal with phobia in public and who are around where I am in their journey. I'm not saying the e girl trans girls or the boymoders or the baby-trans aren't valid and wonderful, (and honestly I should probs be trying to help them with their journey instead of avoiding them) but I do want more mature trans friends, and I don't think I see that on discord, at least not in public servers...

I honestly feel like such an ass, joining and seeing the bubbly and happy trans girls gushing about their hyperfixations and going "hm, no, these trans girls aren't in enough pain for me" like pain is somehow inherent to my experience as a trans woman. I guess it kinda is? It doesn't have to be, of course, I'm sure there's a lot of trans girls who don't experience pain because they're trans but... For me, being trans is a painful, scary thing. It fills up a lot of my mind and life. It doesn't DRIVE me, it's not the only thing I care about (I mean, only like 2 of my 5 upcoming stories are about being trans after all) but it is a near constant source of pain. Everything from shoes to mirrors to the way I sit to my voice to hekkin pronouns reminds me "hey, Erica, remember... you're TRANS. Your body is WRONG. You'll never look the way you want, you missed the boat, you waited too long, you'll never p-" every. single. time.
It's usually in the background, like, under the surface, but it's there. And for me, that's kinda what it's about.  Being trans I mean. That feeling of "something wrong". It's how I knew I was trans at least. I can't imagine knowing I was trans without it, but that's kinda small minded of me ig? I think someone who just didn't vibe with their gender and decided to transition to feel more themselves is still just as trans as me, even if there wasn't dysphoria and a feeling of "oh god what's wrong? all the time, something wrong..." and god I wish that person was me. I don't think I would have transitioned or admitted I was trans back then if it was just a discomfort, but nowadays? I think for sure I would have transitioned over that. but for me, right now, my nature as Trans is tied to my pain at being trans.
Sure there's euphoria from seeing my earrings or seeing my pink-lavender iridescent fingernails, from being "ma'am"ed, from feeling my legs hit each other just right while wearing tights, that's great, but that's not really "good" per say, it's just, how it should be, how I should feel all the time.

I read some stories where people say they stop feeling euphoria, because they just... are themselves, all the time, and the feeling of joy at really getting to BE yourself has worn off. One of my friends said she doesn't think of herself as trans unless she's taking her E, because in her mind, she's just a woman. "Just" a woman. Kinda a funny way to word that imo, but in her words, she's "problematic".
I don't know if I want that, even if I could ever get there with my body and confidence. I cherish the feelings of euphoria I get, but I also know I live in a near constant state of dysphoria, so would I give up my bright, glowing yellow spots of joy if it meant I could escape the black tar pit in my chest that whispers hateful things to me?
I... don't know. There's no beauty without darkness, and there's no way to know if you're happy unless you feel the absence of it, so is it really better to lose the darkness if it means never having the light? I'm at a loss, and like I said, I don't know if I'll even get to the point where I CAN lose the darkness, so it may all be a moot point.

~

Anyway, I'll keep thinking and figuring stuff out. One of my friends is working on a list of happy books about being trans fem, instead of the sad, hurt ones I keep reading (I love them, it's just... I want to feel like I can be happy one day, and the women in the books are not...) so I'm really hoping that I can find some joy in being trans through whatever books they find me.

Until next time,

Erica

Hey friends, sorry it's been so long, I was reading a book, but it was kinda messing with me so I didn't want to just, like, read it? and I kept telling myself "I'll update my blog once I finish this book, so I can do a review" but... that's stupid, I had stuff to say, and that stuff is mostly gone now because I didn't just... update my damn blog.

I did manage to sell about 1/3 of my stuff, and I got about $2300 for it all told, which isn't enough to move, so I need to look into selling something more, my car for sure, but I kinda wanted to use the money from that to get a new face, so... IDK. I need about $15k-$18k to move, and I don't have enough. I'll get a bit from selling the house, but I've only really put money towards the interest and it hasn't gone up in value, so I don't know that I'll actually get anything for it to keep, it'll probs just be a "I paid off the loan and nothing else" kinda thing... Which sucks because I've put SO MUCH money into the house. Blah. But I'm still working on stuff, if I can sell more stuff and keep saving, buy less food, use less AC, stuff like that, I'll get there. I'll have 3-4 months rent and time to find a new job, and hopefully, HOPEfully, enough for a new face. I'm... not sure though, that's a stretch. But getting a new face is my #1 priority, even over legally changing my name tbh, but that's a pretty close second. I'll get there, I just need to get to a good place and bloom.

I talked to my mom again... She didn't use my name this time, or any name, but it's been two weeks and she's been giving me space, so... We had a... normal conversation. I talked about not being able to afford the house, she offered to do my finances for me (NO), we talked about depression and she kinda pushed me to try medication for my mental stuff again, but she respected me when I said no, and like, idk, we just talked about not much. Me being trans came up a couple times, she told me not to get facial surgery because she didn't want me to do "anything I couldn't control" which I took as her kinda still hoping I'll decide I'm not really trans and not need FFS but idk. She was civil enough, she was really sad though. I could tell, and that kinda hurt. I know she's sad for me, she's told me that me being trans hurts her, not because she wishes I wasn't, but because she knows how much pain I'm feeling, and she feels that pain too. Idk how to feel about that, but. If she can stay... civil, and respect my name and pronouns, maybe once a month phone call would be ok, we'll have to see.

So, Not really a book review, but...

I've been thinking a lot about gender lately (duh) and I'm kinda in a weird spot. So, I'm trans, a trans woman. I take titty skittles and t blockers and wear skirts and too much eyeshadow and everything, the whole deal. I've called myself a binary trans woman for a while now. I tried NB, I tried they/them, I tried making fun unique neopronouns for myself, and... it doesn't fit, it's not me. I am within the binary as a woman, and I feel most comfortable when I am seen as and treated as a "binary woman".
This clashes directly with my ideas and beliefs though. I fully believe that gender is a fuck. And I mean that, I don't think there IS a binary, I think gender is a personal experience that can't be fit into a two party system or even a 3 party system, it's an attempt to box the universe so some people can understand it better. I even think the "gender is a spectrum" is a bit off, I get the idea, and I agree, but that still implies there's a range from A to B (or between A, B, and C) which still puts gender into a box, and I just don't see it. I see it as something that's unique to each person.
That said... I find myself fitting into the standard idea of "woman". I mentally, physically, and in expression, fall into the box of "woman" as seen by my society as a whole, and I hate that. Like I said, I've tried to find a way to not be in a box, but it still feels like I fit into a box, a box that shouldn't exist. I don't think I mind what the box is, or how it describes me, I LIKE being a woman, it makes me happy, and I'm not going to change my presentation or pronouns or how I think of myself, but... I wish there wasn't a box at all. I wish I was just me, expressing myself how I do, using she/her, and calling myself a trans woman without the boxes that "trans" and "woman" imply.

The book I've been reading these past two weeks was called "A Dream Of A Woman" by Casey Plett (Picture above, I know, I'm messing with my format, but I need to talk about this and it's relevant, go read it, it's trans short stories about different trans experiences and it's deep and very heartfelt and painful and beautiful) and there was a line in the book that kinda shook me to my core. In the book, the character Annie says;

"Look, we're all women, of course. But if you had never met a woman, you wouldn't know you were one. All you'd know is that something is wrong, in some fashion or another."

And... Holy fuck, that hit like a lead pipe... I am still working through it, days later. What about me and my identity of "woman" is because of ME, the something inside, and how much is from the women I've seen or met in my life? I know if I had never seen a woman, I'd still have had the horrible, dark sticky tar of despair that fills eggs and closeted trans people, because I still had that feeling when I was convinced I was cis, but... what parts of my expression and my identity come from the true me under the tar, and what parts come from the normalized gender structure I've been exposed to my whole life?
I know gender is a construct, that's not new, heck, heterosexuality is a construct and I've known that since I was 10-12 and just realizing I was bi, but I guess I've never applied the idea of "gender is fake" to me and my transness.

It got me thinking, what does it mean for ME to be a woman? Well, to be seen and respected as a woman. Ok, sure, but past fem clothes, she/her, and a little pill to make my boobs hurt, what does it MEAN?
My first thought was "Well, maybe motherhood?" because of my desire to be a mother, but... that's not really it at all, and that's a very personal feeling that only fits me. For me, I think of motherhood and womanhood as linked, because one of the first reasons I knew I was a woman was because of my overwhelming desire to be a mother, to care for and raise a child, but that's not what womanhood really is, not at all. You can be a woman and not be a mother, or have motherly feelings. You can be a woman and not present fem at all. You can be a woman and use They/Them, or Xi/Xir, or even He/Him It's... just a word you use to define yourself. A word with a lot of meaning and power, sure, but it's not really a thing.

I am a woman, and that means I define myself by the metrics that I understand the cultural idea of "woman" to mean, and that's all.

So. How can I consider myself a binary woman if that doesn't really exist? If the idea of gender is subjective, and the labels we use for them are personal and don't describe anything but your own understanding of your personal relationship to that idea, how can I, or anyone, be binary? It's a mess, and I'm still trying to piece out the last bits, but I think that in the end, gender is a fuck, and you don't get to decide what works for you, you are you, and you need to be the you inside. The boxes aren't real, and just because I use the words "trans woman" to describe myself, doesn't mean that those words mean the same thing for me as they do for you.

I don't think that the term "binary trans woman" is useful to me anymore, not since I had this whole revelation. It honestly never was super useful, it was just my way of telling people "hey, I'm trans, I use she/her, and I fit your idea of a woman!" but it never stopped people from using "they/them" (despite me correcting them several times) or making comments that let me know they didn't see me as their idea of a woman at all, but through the frosted glass of "TRANS" "woman"; You know, little things, like asking me about stuff from "when [I was] a boy" or mentioning traditionally masc things and asking me about them and if I was "into it before...", asking if I "got the surgery", introducing me to their friends like "This is Erica, she's a trans!"... Shitty stuff like that.
And let's be real, specifying "binary" before saying you're trans... in hindsight it kinda feels like I was othering NB people? And I wasn't trying to at all, I was just trying to introduce myself in a way that I felt gave the information people may need. And that did not work, they still made their own conclusions and used the wrong pronouns. But it could still be pretty shitty sounding, and I won't be doing it anymore, no matter how my gender expression and labels end up turning out.
I'll keep working through all this in my head, and hopefully next time, I'll have a bit more of a conclusion, I just needed to get this mess all out on the page before I lost my thoughts again.

As per usual, yes I also did read a comic this week

It's called The OUT Side and it's by... gosh, like 30 people. It's a children's(?) comic full of super short comics about being trans and nonbinary, by people who are themselves trans and nonbinary. It's really sweet, and most of them are personal journey stories which is really touching to see, and the others deal with the ins and outs of being queer. There's a lot of unique art, and gosh, it's all so fun and cute, so I really highly recommend picking it up. It's really cheap on the used market, but it's worth the new cost and you get your money's worth for sure. There's a really good mix of different gender expression in the book too, so you'll feel seen no matter what kind of gender queer you are.

Until next time,

Erica

Hey friends, I took all those books to the bookstore, but they said they'd get back to me about them, and... no word yet. Rinnie took a bunch of my comics to the comic shop to see what she would get, and it was a LOT of comics, like, 4 longboxes of them. And... they gave her $100 for everything. I kinda knew it'd be a low amount, but for 4 longboxes?... I was seeing single mystery longboxes sell on ebay for $150, and like, if I had 4, that's $600. Even assuming they only give 25% of the value of the comics, that's still $150 minimum...

Anyways tho, I... talked with my mom, I don't know why, but I did. It's been like 3 weeks, and we used to talk almost daily, at least a few texts, so... it feels like a long time. I wasn't going to, but I ended up messaging her a "goodbye" letter where I listed all my reasons for being mad; the mean things she said about trans people, her not using my name and pronouns, her calling me a groomer in front of the mids, her not taking me seriously, her not seeing me as her daughter, all of it.
She didn't really like it, and said I was just throwing accusations and not letting her respond, and... I admit, I ignored her. I felt bad, but I needed time to sit on what I sent. Later that night though, just as I was finishing my duolingo, she called. I usually have my phone on silent and don't see phonecalls, but she popped up, and I just answered, barely thinking about it until she started the conversation with "....Hi, Erica..." and I was like "Wait... I cut her off... Wait, did she just use my real name???"

We had a long conversation, and she cleared some stuff up, kinda. She said she wasn't saying the mean things about trans people, but rather people who were pretending to be trans, and that she should have clarified. Which... ok, there's still issues with that, but it's like, much deeper discourse than she knows about, so it's most likely fine I think. She is going to use my real name and pronouns from now on, and she said she was just mad I had come out to the mids before i came out to her, and she didn't know the sexual predator meaning of "groomer" and takes it back. You shouldn't use words you don't understand imo, idk. That one I'm still mad about a bit. She said she does take me seriously now, and she does see me as trans (idk if she sees me as her daughter yet), and that she's hurting a lot for what I have to go through, and she wants to be there for me.
I'm still a bit torn up about stuff, I'm still planning on moving, but idk, maybe not cutting her off... It's hard to decide, I'm kinda torn. She's my mom, but I want to feel like I'm accepted, and I'm really hoping she'll accept me fully. It seems like she kinda is working on it. I need to think about it more.

I read two books this week, or, well, last week, Friday I think. The first one was called "Small Beauty" by Jia Qing Wilson-Yang

It's about a trans girl named Mei who moves into her dead cousin's house with his dog. Kind of. It is... such a deep, tangled story of loss and the impact of day to day life, and history, and where you come from, and... it's a lot to read. It feels like there's so, so much more under the surface of the book, so much exploration about gender and race and grief and rejection, and I only kind of found the deeper meanings. It's told in a very unique way, almost confusing if I'm honest, but if you push through and keep going, the tangled mess of a story unfolds and presents itself forwards and backwards simutaniously as you read. It's one of the most beautiful stories I've ever read, and it's just about life, and living it. It hurts to read, but in a good way. I'll be re visiting it in the future, maybe in a year or so, it needs rereading...

The comic this week was Prokaryote Season, by Leo Fox

I admit it- I'm a poser. I have had the "I'm terrible queer representation" sticker on my wall off and on for like, 2 years and I just now got around to reading the book it came from. I wish I'd given it a shot earlier though, it's a very bittersweet story about two non-binary teens dancing around the idea of love and life and what it means to be a multicellular life form. Gender isn't at the forefront of this one, it's rejected and the absence of it in the two main characters is normalized in such a refreshing way. The main character, Sydney, is in love with their best friend, Laurelie, and they sit together and smoke and argue and talk about how nice it'd be to be a single celled organism, lost in the primordial soup. Unfortunately for Sydney though, Laurelie loves a person named Trip, despite Trip being an abusive asshole who hurts them. During a party that they had to travel outside the city into the forbidden forest to get to, Sydney does something drastic to get Laurelie to fall in love with them, but ends up hurting Laurelie badly, and they need to go on a journey to save them. It's funny and sweet, and mostly sad and a bit toxic, but it's a good read, and I feel a lot better about using that sticker now that I actually read the comic.

Until next time,

Erica

Yeesh... I have been absolutely wiped out the past week. Just... emotionally dead. I sold like $1000 worth of games for my big move, and... I did the hard thing of going through my books and finding about 1/3 of them to get rid of... I'm going to the used book store this weekend to sell them, it won't be $1000, but... it's like, over 100 books, so I'm hoping to get at least $300-$400. If not though, at least I freed up some room. I need to go through my figures next, which should be easy, I... really don't care about most of them anymore. I do care about my plush friends tho... and I even got rid of about half of them, which... was really hard.

Thinking about moving is scary, but I need to do it. I really hope my sister comes with me, her company would help a LOT, and... she helps me be better, when she's around I actually eat, and she isn't scared to say "yo, that's dumb af". Plus, I don't know that I can afford an apartment alone to be honest. If she doesn't come, I think I'll have to get just a room, which means I'll have to get rid of WAY more. 
Rinnie aside, I cut my mom off last Saturday, but... she hasn't gotten the message. She keeps calling and texting, and idk, I don't want to block her bc... if like, one of the kids dies or something, I'd want to know. That's a horrible reason, yeah, but, like, still. It's still frustrating to keep getting happy, chipper texts from her, acting like she didn't call me a "psychopathic jerk" last time we talked. It's like, geez, read the room, I'm not responding to you.

Anyway, because I'm planning on leaving my job overnight, I'm working on a guidebook for whoever replaces me, because I had a full month of training before the last person left, and there really is some stuff that the next person needs to know. It's eating into my writing time though, so... whatever I guess, I won't have to worry about it once I leave and I can get back to my actual writing hopefully.

Until next time,

Erica

Hello readers, I am very, very sorry I haven't updated in over a week, It's the longest I've gone without updating, and I feel bad... I'm ok, mostly, but I had a really rough week... I got the closest to "not being around anymore" I've gotten since last summer. I think I have an alternative though. I think I can sell a bunch of my junk, start packing stuff up, and save like a mother fucker, and then when I have enough money and have just enough stuff to fit in a moving pod, I can move away to a secret place, a safe state with good laws and good people, and not tell anyone, my boss, my parents, no one.

The "big bonus" I was going to get was a lie, just like the $150k bonus I was promised, and my house being paid off, and the "monthly commissions" I was going to start getting, and the "full management position" I was supposed to be in... I'm not going to wait around tied to a rich bastard on the hopes he maybe someday gives me something. He gave me a car, but only because he had two identical ones, and wasn't staying at the other place anymore but... I still had to pay $5k for the taxes on it, so... oof. It was nice to get a car ig, but the insurance on it is 4x my old car, and it's hard to afford, and he keeps having me haul stuff in it so I can't just sell it, it's frustrating.
It also came to my attention that he's removed me from his estate and from all paperwork, so... I think I'm on the way out of the company anyway, which is fine. But I don't really want to stick around and wait on it.
Anyway, my plan is to just dip, just go somewhere else, north or west, or waaaaay east. I've been looking at one place in particular, but I really don't want my parents finding me, so I don't want to say here.

Speaking of them, my mom has so far been the "good" parent when it comes to me being trans, she won't use my name or pronouns, but she's not mean about it. That changed last week, she straight up told me she thinks "Trans people are all psychopathic jerks" and should be banned from all public restrooms. I told her "fuck you" and ended the conversation. She's... not very kind. She gets that from her mom, I think. I don't know, it's a mess, but I won't miss her. I wanted to be her daughter, but if she doesn't want me, I won't pursue her.

In good news though, I did go to pride this weekend, my first one! I was the only trans person there (at least, the only person with a trans pin or flag) so that was kinda sad bc I want friends, but I got a free shirt and towel, and I got to do a race, and they gave me a popsicle just for being gay, it was very nice! I may go to another pride event in a couple months, but I've decided not to go to the pride event I was thinking about in august, it'll be too hot, and I think I'm not comfortable in the environment it'll be in...

As for writing, I'm doing ok on my next story, but nothing great so far, I may need to start from the beginning and go from there, but I'm not sure yet...

I did read a couple books in the past week, or at least, I finished them. The first is "Tell Me I'm Worthless" by Alison Rumfitt

This is actually her first book, I didn't realize, so I should have read it before I read Brainwyrms (one of if not the first book I reviewed on here) but other than a bit of context for a side character, it wasn't really important. It's... kinda a story about a haunted house, but it's also about trauma, and transphobia, and being haunted yourself. Like Brainwyrms, it's very graphic in the way it describes horror, SA, and violence, but it does it in a way that feels "raw" if that makes sense, like, the over explanations and details are coming out in a flood as the author lives the experience herself and is rushing to get out what she wants to say.... I think I liked Brainwyrms better, but this one was quite good too, I liked the feeling it had of being beaten down so far you either break or thrash, and how the characters react to that. I'd say it's worth a read, but you do need to beware the graphic content.

This week's comic was a horror comic/manga compilation called "Betwixt", and it was written by a collection of 8 authors, some American, some Japanese.

It has a cool gimmick where half the book is American, and reads American style, and when you get to the middle, you close it and start again from the other side, manga style. I thought that was pretty fun, I've not seen that before! The stories were pretty good, the standouts to me were the stories "Never Left" by Michael W. Conrad and Becky Cloonan, and "Kamei" by Ryo Hanada. It's hard to give an overall review for it because it's a collection, but the key word is "Betwixt", and they all tie into that somehow. If that interests you, it's a fun way to pass the time, but personally I'd pick it up used, it's a fast read.

Until next time,

Erica

Friends, it is HOT. It was 109 here where I am earlier, and... most of my work doesn't have AC... I've been hiding out in a 10x10 room with a window unit in it all week, but I still have to get my steps in, and you know, do my job, so I've been braving the heat... It's not fun... I really really want to move somewhere I don't have to worry about my shoes getting melty if I leave them in the sun by accident. I'll have to move once I can leave this job...

I did a bit of work on a story this week! The wrong story... yeah, I know, I need to focus, but this one is cool too and once I get the basics out of me I'll go back to working on Transcybersexual.

I also read a new book this week, it's called "Dandelion Daughter" by Gabrielle Tremblay, translated from french by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch.

It's a really sweet and sad autobiographical story about a trans girl growing up in a broken home, not understanding her sexuality and her gender, and just... being her best, beautiful self. I really think this one felt the most "vivid" out of the ones I've read lately, most likely due to it being real life. I read it very quickly, I think because a lot of the chapters are less than one page? A lot of empty space, but that helps with the pacing. There's one line in the book where she's getting a blood test, and the nurse assumes she's getting a blood test because she's pregnant, and she thinks to herself "I am, I am pregnant with myself" and that is one of the most powerful things I've read this year... It really hit me hard, and it's making me think about my transition differently, more gently, and making me feel better about not being able to get pregnant for real...

The comic this week was LSBN by Emma Jayne, it's a story about two trans women working their whole adult lives on a giant mecha, and getting the news the war they were going to use it in was canceled.

It's a fun read (there is nudity so beware if that's not your thing) and while it's short, there's some fun designs, and some good old fashioned mecha action. It's got some transbian bits, which is always cute to see (makes me wish I was emotionally stable enough to date lol) and the emotional growth of the characters is nice as well. It was shorter than I'd like for sure, but still a good read.

Because LSBN was so short, I also read another short comic this week! It was called Fruiting Bodies, by Ashley Robin Franklin.

This one is super short, like, really short, comic book length, which is cool, it was just as long as it needed to be and I think it works very well, but it does make it hard to talk about without spoiling it? What I can say is that it involves a road trip in Oregon, where the car runs out of gas and the road trippers have to camp for the night in the woods. They meet up with another person lost in the woods while setting up camp, and after that, stuff gets interesting lol. I found this one in the zine section of my local queer bookstore, and I picked it up bc... $9, so why not? I can say it's worth the price, the art and story are very "vibe" if that makes sense. It almost felt like... Beautiful Darkness? (which is one of my all time fav comics so big compliments from me there), and similarly I think it'd be best enjoyed outside, in the woods, by the light of an autumn sunset. Or just. Like I did, curled up in a recliner. Either way.

I'll hopefully get back on track on my main story soon, but no promises!

Until next time,

Erica

This weekend was soooo full... I went to that street fair and me and my sister got a TON of food, and it was all so good... I love jackfruit so so much, and they had a ton of it, so much. They also had mushroom burgers, philly cheesesteaks, empanadas, pizza, everything, all 100% vegan... I was in heaven...

After that, we went to the tattoo parlor, and I got my ears pierced!!!! Aaaaa I'm SO happy... I've wanted them pierced for so so long, and they finally are, it's so good... I keep seeing them in the mirror and just kinda melting a bit with happiness! I have to wait 3-6 months before I can swap them out, which is... sad to say the least, but I at least have black studs in now, so they'll go with anything. Rin on the other hand, got something she's wanted for a long time, her first tattoo!!! It's the Joestar birthmark, and it looks sooooo good, I'm really happy for her (and a bit jealous ngl). Overall, it was a long weekend, but it was a fun one, and I had a great time!

I also got a figure I ordered waaay back before I moved out of my parent's house, so I don't even KNOW when, but she finally showed up! I... don't think I'd have ordered her today, and she's WAY more money than I would be willing to pay now, but seeing her in person, I'm blown away...

It's the Junji Ito character Tomie, when she regenerated her body in the basement of the hospital! It was made by "Echos Gallery". It's 1/6 scale and made of acrylic, resin, and plastic.

It's got great details too, the little severed face and the kidney with the arms and legs growing out is really cute!
I wasn't going to keep it, I already have a Tomie figure, with more gore and she's... you know, wearing clothes, but... This one is so pretty and fun, I am having a hard time wanting to sell it...

Anyway, I'm working on my next story, Transcybersexual, and it's going... ok, ish. I'm having a bit of an issue making the story convey what I want without telling it blatantly. I'm still in the planning phase, which is like the outline phase, but I mostly just collect notes and ideas in a doc and build off that instead of outlining traditionally. Today though, I'm resting. I want to chill, relax, and watch cartoons with Roger until bed, so that's what I'll do.

Until next time,

Erica

Golly gosh oh gee, readers, this has been one heck of a week... I have been KILLING it at work, and mayyy be getting a big bonus soon, I hope... I've been working really hard, and I haven't had time to read or write, but... if this deal goes off and I get the 10% I have been loosely promised, I won't have to worry about that ever again... Fingers crossed, but things may be turning up! Also... I had a birthday since my last update! I'm that much closer to 30... Getting older...

This is a friend someone close to me made! I am not allowed to tell about him yet, but when I have permission to share, I will!

I noticed that I've gotten a lot of views since I posted my story too, I got around 40-50 new views since I posted it, which is a lot of people! I hope at least a couple read the story, because I really want as many people as can stomach it to read it, because I'm pretty proud of it... If not though, that's ok too, finishing it and getting it up on the internet was the big goal, and I did that!

I also did something else this week, did one of my big goals... My friends have been saying I need therapy for... I guess years now, and one of my friends I've known for about 3-4 years told me he won't talk to me until I get therapy. So... I did the hard thing, and signed up for and attended my first session of group therapy. It's a kind of support group vibe, with less focus on "leader helping everyone" and more of "let's help each other", but it's really nice. I probs need one on one therapy too at some point, but this was hard enough to do for me... I really struggled to get out of my car to go in, and it felt like I was walking into a trap the whole time for some reason. I think it'll be good, but doing ANYthing is really hard with my severe social anxiety and agoraphobia, so... I'm really proud of myself for doing it...

I want to get better, not be a shut in loser my whole life, so I'm trying to find stuff online to go to, mostly queer/trans based stuff, but it's hard to find good stuff for trans people that doesn't involve drinking (I get it, I used alcohol to quell my dysphoria for years and years) but for someone like me who doesn't drink, and doesn't enjoy dancing/raves, it's like... There's not much at all.
I am still going out tomorrow though, my CBT workbook says I need to do a hard thing once a week, and I did already do the hard thing of therapy, but... I really want to get better, so I'm also going to go to a street fair in the big city near me. It'll be a big test, crowds, loud, outside in the open air, surrounded by tall buildings, and not able to go hide. It's... not going to be easy, but they are supposed to have a ton of good vegan foods there, so I am making myself go.
Afterwards, I'm doing something I've wanted to do for years, and will challenge another fear of mine; being touched by strangers. I'm getting my ears pierced! I have wanted to have it done since I was like 12, but my dad was very against it (despite having his ears pierced when I was little) and by the time I was old enough and out enough to do it, I was deathly afraid of being touched, so I never did it. In FFXIV right now though, there's an event where if you grind it out and work hard, you can get these really cute earrings of carbuncle, and I LOOOOVE them

So... they don't make them in real life, but I want to be able to wear something like that, so it's inspired me to face my fears and get the piercing done. It'll be a month or so before I can wear anything like the ones shown, but that just means I have time to order them and have them shipped! 

I'll let you know how the weekend goes later, and please check out my story if you haven't yet! (please check the trigger warnings in my last post though)

Also, I wanted to give my readers that OTHER story I mentioned, the one that was used as a test for the HTML! So... here it is!

The Ice Cream Man

It's not the best story I've written, and it's kinda old, but you might like it, it's kinda a fun look at night shift at a gas station, if you are interested. It's autobiographical, so it really happened irl! (No trigger warnings on this one)

Until next time,

Erica

At long last, I present to you Immortal, a story about a homeless girl, who, after a couple accidents, discovers she's very hard to kill. As she tries to understand herself better through medical tests and religion, she finds herself the target of a powerful person's desires, and he's sure that he can extract her immortality for himself. Almost fully alone in the world, she must stay strong through a series of hardships with her best friend Mill by her side.

It's about 28k words across 10 chapters. Trigger warnings are: Violence/gore, violence against children, SA (implied, but not shown or discussed), and SH.The wonderful cover art was drawn by my lil sis, Rin (she was also the pre-reader/editor!) She did a great job, and I really think it helps the story vibe get set right off the bat. She (like me) isn't really on social media, so I don't have any links to her other works, but hopefully we see more of her art here on this blog in the future!

~

Chapter One

~

It feels like ages since I first started writing this story... It took a bit longer than it should have, because... well, I also started at least 3 other stories in the meantime, and I really want to get those finished soon too! My next story I think will be called "Transcybersexual" and will feature a transfem character in a cyberpunk world, trying to get the medical care she needs to transition. It'll be interesting to write, I'll have to get a bit abstract for a couple scenes, so I'm looking forward to figuring that part out!

If you read Immortal, and enjoyed it (or hated it even) please join my discord server! The link is in the sidebar, and I would love to hear what you thought about it, so please pop in and say hi!

Until next time,

Erica

Hello! This week I'm doing the long, boring task of converting almost 30k words of story in Cryptpad into HTML so I can put it on this website. I have 10 chapters to convert, and so far I've done... I don't want to talk about it... This week has been going pretty slow thankfully, so I actually had time to read a bit! I finished the book I've been working on for a couple weeks, and also a really cute comic...
The first book, the novel, was called Manhunt, and was written by Gretchen Felker-Martin

It's a post apocalyptic story where testosterone is a death sentence, and almost all men have mutated into horrible twisted humanoids that exist to hunt, kill, eat, and rape anything they see. I say almost all, because one of the three characters, Robbie, is a man himself. He, like all the main characters, is trans, and the book focuses on his, Beth's, and Fran's experiences living as trans people in the world after the end of the world. It does something I haven't seen before in trans fiction, it looks at what happens when the E and blockers dry up. Robbie can't use T unfortunately, but Beth and Fran HAVE to use E and blockers or they risk becoming those horrible monsters, so for blockers, they chew on licorice root, and for E... they get it from the most potent source they can. Testicles. Hence the name of the book.

I really enjoyed reading it, the inclusion of a TERF group trying to take over the east coast and the addition of a post-apocalyptic gated community that kiiinda feels a bit ick makes the story feel complex and varied, and we even get some scenes from the perspective of one of the TERFs, a lady named Ramona, but her chapters aren't as frequent. It's a dark, gory look at gender critical thoughts taken to an extreme, and the struggles of surviving when the thing you hate about yourself the most is also trying to kill you. I highly recommend it to anyone who like horror or post apocalyptic fiction, but be warned, it does have several scenes that can trigger dysphoria and SH and SA mentions, so go into it with caution if that bothers you
I think it's 100% worth the read, and I would consider it one of the best books I've read this year!

The next book is... Pretty much the exact opposite. It's called Us, and it's by Sara Soler, and was originally in spanish I think. I read the Dark Horse version translated by Silvia Perea Labayen.

This book is closer to an autobiography of Sara's relationship with her girlfriend Diana, and their journey through Diana's egg cracking and her eventual transition. It deals with a lot of important aspects of early transition, and most importantly, it's one of the only things I've seen that shown a healthy trans lesbian relationship that isn't T4T. Don't get me wrong, I love T4T, and I mayyyy stick to it when I join the dating scene, but there really isn't much rep of "trans girl x cis girl" that isn't "ugh she makes me so dysphoric and she doesn't understand and she called me the wrong pronouns, and-"... Maybe I'm reading the wrong stuff, or I haven't read enough yet, but I thought it was refreshing
It does deal with a lot of stuff that's really hard for an early transitioner, like buying girl clothes in public in boymode, not having the courage to use the bathroom at all in public, being treated like you're stupid now that you know you're a girl, and not being treated seriously by people who claim to be allies, all of which I have gone through, and felt a little pang of "aw bb gril..." when I read it
The art is super sweet looking and it's a fun style that has sooo much energy in it and it adds a lot to the story; even though it's true events, it feels cartoony. There's also an artistic choice to have all transphobes portrayed by a strawman of sorts, so there's a lot of 'characters' that look like this plain outline, and it's like a tip that they aren't good people, which is fun
I have to be honest though... While I loved it and melted at the cute art and relationship that Sara and Diana had, it... was a LOT of just "hey, this is what it's like to be trans!" which is helpful to a lot of people, but like, to me who's been various stages of out for like 5-6 years and on hrt for 7 months (today is the 7 month anniversary actually!!!) it's like, ok, I know this stuff, I went through most of it years ago. And that does NOT invalidate the story or the experiences, but it does mean that people who are earlier in their transition journey will get wayyyy more out of it than I did
I think it's worth a read for sure, and it's really cute and heartwarming, but I would say if you've been trans for a while yourself, it may be a better book to get so your friends and family can borrow it and understand you a bit better. I know once my lil sister is done with it I'll probably let my mom try it, she... did not like Nevada at ALL... She said it's too sad to finish, and... well, yeah mom, that's being trans... But this one is sweet and hopefully she can read it all the way.

Thank you so much for reading, and I hopefully will have the story up by this weekend, and... it comes with a surprise!!! So be ready for that!

Until next time,

Erica

Friends... I did it! I finished the story! It's about 27.5k words long (I know, it's a long story, technically a novella) and I wrapped up the first round of editing last night! I have three people who have agreed to pre-read it, and one of them should have it done today, so I'll get some feedback soon! I'm so, so happy... Once I hear back from at least 2/3 of the readers, I'll go over it again, then start formatting it for this site. I don't know how long that will take, but it shouldn't be too long!

(this is Haisley and Michaela, they're helping me celebrate~!)

Gosh, it took 2 months and 19 days to finish this story... Assuming I had weekends off, that's still just shy of 500 words a day... I know I had some pretty rough spells mental health wise, but I really want to see that number go up, wayyyy up... I'd like it to hit 2k per day eventually, but that is like, a second job I think, and it may be too much to ask for me right now. I really hope you guys enjoy the story when I post it! it's a bit scary, and it's a horror story, but in more of a "oh no, why?" kind of way.
I'll put a more detailed description when I post it here, and I think I'm going to have it broken down into pages, each 'chapter' being one web page, so it's not an overwhelmingly long post. It'll be linked here, on the front page, and in the sidebar, but the story itself will be separate, so it doesn't cover up all my posts.
I think I'm getting the hang of the website thing, at least a bit, and while I still don't really know HTML very well, I think I can get the stuff I want posted where I want it! As a treat, after my story goes live, I mayyy make another, shorter story public. I used it to figure out what formatting I was going to use for my story, but never put it on my main page because it's kinda eh, but I think once I have an actually GOOD story up (at least, I think it's not too bad) then I'll add the other one as like, a bonus!

I've spent most of this week writing and editing, and I didn't have too much time to read, but I think that's 100% a fair trade!

Thanks to everyone who's been reading this blog so far waiting on me to write a story, It's just a bit more and I can share it with all of you!

Until next time,

Erica

Gosh, that was a whirlwind, but things are back to normal and E is back up north at his house. It was a craaaazy weekend, I had a lot of fun, but I am absolutely exhausted. Before we picked E up, we went to "Charis Books and More" on Friday, and I think it's my favorite bookstore ever so far, they had SO many gay and trans books, just mixed into the "regular" books, it was so refreshing to see them not be set aside in a "queer lit" section. I got like 4-5 books there, I'll review them here as I get to them of course! Next up we stopped by Criminal Records and Junkman's Daughter just because we were in the area and they're fun, but we didn't really get anything. We also went to a con on Friday and THAT was a lot of fun, but we had to rush through it because we had to drop the mids off with my dad at 5:30, so that was sad, but they had fun. I got a she/her pin and a trans flag, and a few little fun things too! E and lil sis helped me hang up the flag in my living room the next day!

After that we went to Ikea too, and I FINALLY got a BLÅHAJ!!! I named him Bowie and he's soooo good to hug. I'm really happy to finally have one... It is the perfect size for hugging, and it's so soft... it's bigger than I expected for sure, but I'm not complaining at all. Roger is still my #1 plush friend of course, and I'll always be more likely to hold him than Bowie, but it's nice to have options and he looks super cute on my couch.

We had a pretty laid back Saturday, we just played Mario Kart and chatted, and my family came by for a bit to see E and his fiancé S, but it was rough because my parents kept using the wrong name for me and the wrong pronouns and yeah people kept correcting them, but it still hurt. My mom also made fun of Roger again (she said he looked 'mean' a few weeks ago and it really hurt his feelings) but she made fun of his spirit bag and said he wasn't real, and some other stuff, I'm not sure, it was not fun. After that and the misgendering I kinda shut down and I hid Roger and lay on the couch with Bowie and faded away. When I came back to my body, the family was gone, and it was almost dinner time!
We had lions mane curry with riced colliflower and one of those fake eggs to sit on top of everyone's dish. I really really like curry, it's one of my favorites, and if you do it right, it's not a "this is good for a vegan dish" it's "this is just GOOD." so I love making it for people. S didn't finish hers, which is fair, it was juuuust a bit too spicy I think, and she has a limited pallet so E made her a cheese sandwich instead, then we watched Tim and Eric and Clerks until bed, it was great.

Sunday we were supposed to see E's friend, but they slept 30 minutes past the time they were supposed to come over, and at that point we needed to get started cooking the food for the family potluck, so they ended up not coming.
The potluck was craaaazy though, we were supposed to make bread shaped like turtles but we didn't have time or enough flour, so we just got take and bake sourdough from the store, and focused on the other dishes. We made 'cheesy' garlic and chive mashed potatoes, vegan mozzarella gnocchi, slutty green beans, my famous homemade 'vegan queso' (I made the recipe myself!), and my favorite... an amalgamation cake! It had strawberry jam and nutmeg and cinnamon and allspice and cloves, and the icing was homemade vanilla with chopped nuts and shredded coconut... It was so, so good... My mom brought grits and a hashbrown casserole, neither of which were vegan, so I couldn't tell you if they were any good, but the stuff me, E, S, and lil sis made together were AMAZING. Everyone told me they loved it so much, and that they couldn't tell what the queso tasted like, but it was so much better than cheese, and even my dad was like "That was not what I expected, it was, yeah, that really, well, I was surprised" which is his way of saying "huh, it wasn't actually bad, I liked it" without having to compliment me about anything.
After that, we just hung out outside, and most of the family swam while lil sis jumped in my trampoline and me and my mom walked around the yard. I wanted to swim, but... my boobs are too big to wear any of my old swimsuits now, and yeah I want to get a swimsuit, but I'm still not curvy enough to be confident in form fitting clothes, so it'd have to be one of the fluffy ones that hides your shape, and most likely I'd need a leolines bottom, so... I'll just wait.
The family left, but they left my little brother R behind with us (me, E, S, and lil sis) so we spent the evening playing Jackbox and it got wild, but we had fun.
The next day, they all had to leave, so E and S went to my grandmother's house (I couldn't go without causing a scene, I'm not out to them and I can't come out without losing my job) and once he came back, I took him to the airport and... That was that. He's gone back home. 

It's a very strange feeling to be honest. I feel more alone than I did before he came, and I feel so, so tired, and my stomach hurts because I ate too much all the days, and... Honestly, after getting to wear skirts and tops that show off my chest, and leggings and makeup and painted nails, and getting called Erica almost by everyone, and just being able to relax and be myself and not put on a show or fake anything for 4.5 days... Gosh, going back to work and wearing my unisex jumpsuit and having plain nails and only what makeup my makeup pad didn't remove, it hurts... So, so much. I feel like I was myself for all that time, and now I'm wearing someone else's skin. It hurts. It really hurts. And I really miss having E here, and S too, they know other trans people and I felt I could be seen by them and they see a girl, a woman, and idk, I know I have some other siblings here, but I don't know they get it as well, and like, they keep misgendering me, and E and S never did, and that's nice. I really hope they come back soon...

I didn't have a chance to read any over the long weekend, so no book review yet, but soon, I promise! And no music review because I've just been listening to David Bowie for a week and I really don't know what I could say about his music that hasn't been said before by smarter people than me. I want to get my sleep caught up and work on the last section of my story too, so we'll see if I can get stuff put out soon! 

Until next time,

Erica

Hello friends! What's this? An update on a Thursday??? Well, I felt bad because I will most likely be unable to update until Tuesday at the earliest, as my brother is coming into town tomorrow (and his fiance)! He'll be here for about 3 days, and I have been cleaning like an absolute MAD woman to get ready lol.

My house still isn't clean, but lil sister and the mids are coming over tonight and they can help me clean hopefully. They may not want to though, they keep saying "your house is already clean" or "I don't know what else there is to clean" or even "E won't notice your baseboards, Erica"... Well ok, but I notice the baseboards, and I want them clean for E's visit... I think it'll be a really nice visit even if it's messy. we're going all over the big city and going to a con tomorrow, and Saturday I want to run a one shot (maybe Troika?), Sunday someone is coming over for a bit but then they leave and we're having a potluck and game night with all the family!!! The good ones, the ones I talk to lol. I'm suuuper excited, but I won't be able to write or update my blog Sunday like I usually do I think, which is fine, because E will be here! I'll tell you all about the visit after he's gone, it'll be great.

This week I read a good chunk of a pretty good trans horror novel I'm looking forward to telling you about, but I didn't finish it yet, and I skipped ahead and read a comic my sister wanted to borrow so she could pick it up this weekend.

It's called "Black Marrow" and it's by the artist Pastacolazione. It's so beautiful every page could be hung on the wall, it's absolutely amazing the work and effort that went into it... 

It's a dark, sad story about a necromancer desperately trying to finish a ritual, and it's gross and violent and gore-y all the way through. It does have one scene of SA, so do be warned, but the feeling of yearning and desire thorough out the book is amazing. The art though, the slimy, twisted, eldritch gore of the art, that's what I love most. It's hard to explain the book in a way that wouldn't ruin it, but if you can find it and don't mind gross and violence, please give it a shot. I got my copy directly from Hollow Press, the publisher, but there may be other places that carry it as well.

Sorry for the short post, I'm sure next time it'll be very long!

Until next time,

Erica

Gosh it has been one heck of a week... I am so tired, and I think I may be coming down with something? My throat has hurt since early Saturday, and I and exhausted... My friends think it's just a physical stress response to all the anticipation I have for my brother E coming to stay with me in 5.5 days (less than a week!!!) and I guess I could see that. I have been making lists of what to do, when to do it, what to clean, what I'll wear when, who's coming over, who I need to come out to before they DO come over, what to cook and what we'll eat when, it's... Yeah, I'm pretty frazzled. And honestly, it's my brother, I could just let him show up with nothing but a couple boxes of cereal and dust on every surface and he'd be like "Erica you're such a great host, thank you for having me" because he's just that kind of guy.

I know I shouldn't worry so much, but it's been like 9+ months since I saw him and he's like, one of the best people out there, so I really want to be able to focus on spending time with him while he's here, not thinking of things to do, or cleaning, or having to do stuff I could have gotten done before he came... My sister and the two mids, the middle siblings, are coming over Thursday because we have a looong day on Friday going all over ATL before we pick E up at the airport, and she has graciously offered to help clean while I'm at work, and the mids will help make my lawn look great too. The cleaning I'll try to do as much as I can, so she's not on her knees doing baseboards or something, but there's a lot and I can only do so much after work. The lawn is a different story though, I used to mow lawns, I used to ride around on a big machine and mow lawns with E and my other sister, but these days if I even stay in the sun for an hour I turn bright pink, and it's not a cute pink... My skin has gotten a lot more thin and I think lighter since I started HRT and that may be it? I just know I am not great in the sun anymore.

I had to end my fast a day early by the way. I was doing the thing where you don't have any "cloudy" liquids like V8 or OJ, so I lived on apple juice and white grape juice and stuff all week, and by Thursday I was falling over and I couldn't think straight, so I had some vegan jerky, and basically felt like garbage while my body remembered how it worked for like two days. I'm feeling ok now, but I'm not sure how I'm going to approach my fasts in the future... 
I was planning on fasting/not drinking on Friday because I'll be in the big city in a skirt and makeup and I do not know how the bathroom situation will turn out, but I am not sure if that's a great idea, seeing E for the first time in ages with a headache and dry throat will be rough, and I usually drink a lot of water. I'm not sure, lil sister will be with me, so I may be able to just go with her, and it be easier? but it's still scary.

I am spinning my gears waiting for this upcoming weekend, and I don't really know what's next after that, this one weekend has sooo much going on that I've been looking forward to, E coming over, the con, a big family potluck, a game night, it'll be crazy. After that though, I have nothing planned or scheduled at all for the rest of the year, or at all really. I may lose my job, yeah, but there's a lot of uncertainty about that, and it's not something to "look forward to". I have my house, a car, I have everything I want physically (except maybe some more outfits) and emotionally I want a relationship but I know I'm not emotionally enough yet, so that's out, I don't know, it just feels like I have nothing left to look forward to. My lil sister says that's a really bad way to look at things, and it's unhealthy, but I don't mean to think of it like that, it just happens.

Maybe I'll find something at the con to look forward to, join a LARP or something? Not sure, I've never LARPed in my life, but they're always recruiting new people at cons, so it may be worth looking into? I'm honestly a bit nervous about the con and all the places we were talking about going to Friday, I hear the big city will be way more accepting of me than where I live, but I go out at least once a week (or I try to, as part of my agoraphobia therapy) and every time I get a strange reaction from someone. Being called a slur, being called "sir", being laughed at, being glared at, being stared at, being "stared" at... I was getting a slurpie yesterday in the gas station by my house, and this older man, 55+ with white hair, a grizzled look, cowboy clothes, and one pierced ear fully turned away from the cashier and stared at me, ignored her telling him to pay the first time, and then put his card in without turning away from me. I tried to act like I didn't notice, but he kept looking at me as he finished, got his purchase, and walked out the door, looking at me over his shoulder as he walked away.
That was creepy. Really creepy. it felt like he was going to follow me home and murder me or something, I honestly was pretty scared, and all he did was stare. I had to go home and sit on the couch with Roger for a while, it was not fun.
I really think it'll be better at the con because there's a TON of queer nerds, but the rest of the day, when I'll be going to random interesting stores around town, that's... less sure. I don't want another old man death staring me, and I'm really worried about being actively hate crime-ed. I really don't pass, and I feel like such a target, but I can't go out and be seen by that many people and be wearing a masc costume, it'd be torture. I have to risk it, but it doesn't mean I can't be scared. Maybe I'll bring my taser, or my pepper spray? We'll see...

Until next time,

Erica

My boss asked me to kill him today. It's been a while since he asked me to do that, I think... 10 months?
He used to ask a lot, swap back and forth between asking me to do it and telling me he was going to do it on the spot. I called 911 a few times, but he always said he was fine and that he didn't know what I was talking about when the cops showed up. I kinda realized he didn't really want to do it, he wanted me to think he wanted to do it and try and cheer him up. idk, it's a shitty feeling, being manipulated into making someone try and make you feel better. To use something they struggle with themselves to pull them in and try and make them feel feeling they would usually never feel for you, like compassion or care.
I don't know that he remembers me telling him I've tried it myself, but I assume he didn't care enough to remember. He generally doesn't remember anything anyone tells him about themselves, he just makes up a fake them in his head and just assumes they're like that. It's frustrating, and I try to not be the me in his head as much as I can to break his image of me, but he doesn't really ever notice. He's like the only person in my life I'm not out to, the only person I can't dress how I want around and have makeup on around. It'll come out eventually, my sister T can't keep a secret, and it'll worm its way back to him as she gossips with everyone around her. I'm (mostly) prepared for it, I know I'll lose my job when he finds out, if not because of him, because of his violently phobic wife. And I don't think I qualify for any jobs that make as much as I make now, so I most likely will lose my house. I feel a little validated by that thought though, like, I'm proving I'm really trans because I'm willing to lose my home over it, to be homeless and to have to sell all my books over it. I know I'm trans, but sometimes it's nice to know you're trans, even more, you know?

I'll probs end up back at a dead end store selling beer to losers at 10:45 at night again, living in a rented trailer or sharing an apartment with 3 other people I hate. And you know what? I think I want that. Even if it's shitty and horrible and everything comes crashing down around me, I'll be me. It hurts so much to go to work, and even in my nice, loose unisex jumpsuit that hides my boobs and makes me look androgynous, I still feel like I'm trampling on my soul a bit each day. I long for the moment where I can burn this gilded cage and be free, free to make shitty decisions and crash and burn for the rest of my life, as ME.
I look at all this stuff, and feel all the pressure and the anxiety and stuff, stuff like my boss asking me to kill him or the puppy dying, or the brain worms and I think "Oh gosh I have it so hard, how can I keep going?" and then other times I look at the good stuff, like my mom and dad kind of almost starting to work on accepting me, and my brother coming for a visit next week, or the three online friends who offered me a place to stay if I lose my house, and... it's like "How DARE I feel sorry for myself? There are trans girls out there dying and getting stabbed and being sent to camps." and I think a lot of it comes down to my flair I put on my life. 
Neither side is too right, neither side is too wrong, there aren't even sides. I just assign a writer's importance to stuff in my life, and assume it means something. Like I'm a character instead of a human. "this event fucked me up, so it must be important down the line, I need to understand and process it to find out why it happened" when really... Shit just happens, all the time, for no reason. The puppy didn't die to show me I wanted a pet. I didn't have teeth problems to force me out of my agoraphobia and into a public place, it's all just stuff that happens. It's ironic, I hate being compared to media, and here I am pretending I'm in a book.

Speaking of books, I did end up finishing that book I was reading, it's called "Nevada" by Imogen Binnie. It's pretty iconic in the trans-sphere, a cult classic from what I hear. I've been putting it off for a long time, but I got to it in my stack of "to be read" so I decided to give it a shot

It's really sad, mostly it's about the rough, hard experience of being trans, the before and after are both pretty well captured in the book through two characters. The post-transition character is a very anarcho-punk lady named Maria who is going through a rough patch in her life, and had been for what seems like her while life. She's 6 years into transition, and can pass on the average day, and her thoughts are full of trans ideology, self hate, and emotional doubts. Very relatable.
The pre-transition character is a character named James H. who refuses to admit [she's] trans (yet). [Her] thoughts are full of fears of being an autogynephilic, stoned revelations of "wisdom" and just the most egg trains of thought you can imagine.
I really really liked the book, it was very well written and very relatable, it felt like lived experiences on page, and while it was fictional, I got the feeling it wasn't THAT fictional. It made me cry a bit, and I think I'm going to let my mom read it. It's not perfect for explaining stuff to a cis person, but I think it'll be helpful for her in a couple ways at least.

This week's comic was a very cute one called "Doughnuts and Doom" by Balazs Lorinczi. I don't know why I seem to be on a lesbian comic kick, but that's just how it goes I guess. I think it's because while I like gay men in comics and stuff, I can't really see myself as the characters so I'm less likely to want to read it? I'm pan, not lesbian, so... I feel weird just reading lesbian comics, but here we are. If there were more trans comics, I'd be allll over that!

The book is a really cute story about a witch, and a musician who plays... I thiiink some kind of rock? I tried to figure out her sound, but it's hard to tell because I know nothing about music. It's a simple "enemies to friends to ???" story that feels really gay, but thinking about it wasn't actually that gay. It was fun though! and the colors were really cute, kind of a trans pallet over the whole thing which made me really hope there would end up being a "oh actually the witch is trans!" moment, and make it a sweet story about acceptance or something, but no, just blue white and pink for no reason. I do recommend reading it, but maybe see about getting it in person, my copy fell apart by the time I got to the end, and the pages fell out, which was really sad, and I wish I had been able to check the binding before I bought it.

This week's song is... *checks playlist* Gorehound! by Harley Poe. A returning artist, I really like them, and they have a ton of bangers! This one is pretty edgy, and it has some mentions of sa, so be warned, but it's mostly a song about loving movies with gore and stuff that "normal" people would think is sick or disturbed. I really like gore and movies with gore and taboo and stuff, it always made me feel safe, almost accepted in a way. It's fun to see people get slain (in movies ofc) and it gives me a sense of joy that the song really relays. The line "You say my head is fucked / With a dark and twisted heart / Well I say that it’s cathartic, just another form of art" pretty much sums up my views on horror in general. I think some of us need stuff like gore movies or horror films to help us release some pressure. I'm not saying "If I didn't have horror movies I'd go out and hurt people!!1!" It's more of "If I didn't have horror movies, I would be a LOT more stressed and wound up than I am now (and you know I'm already very stressed and wound up)"
Give it a listen, as always, and hopefully next time I'll have another song for you!

Until next time,

Erica

Wow, I have had one heck of a doozy of a week. I got a TON of writing done on my story, at least compared to what I HAVE been doing, and I'm up to like... I think it was around 21k? I actually wrote when I was planning on reading, and as a result, I didn't have a chance to finish the book I'm reading like I thought I would. 

This week though, it starts coming and it just keeps coming... On Wednesday I accidentally saw a very disturbing video of the war in Palestine, and like, don't get me wrong, I love seeing gore and even real medical gore can be cool to me, but... this was a step further than that, it was very traumatizing for me, and I cried and cried... It was very graphic, in such a casual way, I could not stand it...
The very next day, I was at work, and it came to my attention that there was an injured puppy that needed my help, and it was really hurt, like, really hurt, and I offered to take it to the shelter when I could get off work, and I thought that it'd be fine for a bit, so I went and tried to finish my work super fast, but when I got done and got back, it was dead... Not because it had passed away from the wounds, but because someone KILLED IT because they didn't think it was worth saving. It was just a little baby, and it needed love, and care, and it died before I could save it... Except, it was in pain, and I went to work anyway, so really it's my fault because I should have dropped everything to save it, why on earth did I just... think it'd be ok??? I feel so guilty, and I have cried about it every day since.

Then the next day, I found out my mom was telling my siblings that I wouldn't be allowed to see them until I went back in the closet, and that I wouldn't be allowed to have them over without "compromise", and that they were going to make me de-trans. THAT freaked me out, so so much. I called my siblings and tried to find out how much was true, then that night one of my siblings went to my mother and she got mad at me and I had to call her, so the next day I did, and we talked for over an hour...
It... was not quite a misunderstanding, but something close. I felt ignored, ghosted, and like my mom and dad were angry at me, and I was taking things up to 11 when it was really more like a 6. We figured things out a bit, but my mom wanted to come over yesterday with my dad to talk things over with me in person, and... I kinda wanted it all over and done with so I was happy to do it.
I'm still not entirely sure how it all worked out, but I ended up coming to an agreement with them that I can be myself, and they'll try to respect my name and pronouns, but I have to understand that it'll be hard, and I'm allowed to see my siblings, but they can tell the siblings what I'm doing is a 'sin' even if they still should love me.

They did say I will lose my job, and my mom really wants me to wfh for my safely, but I'm not sure I can make rent on a wfh paycheck. She said that my boss will find out though, because he has ties to my family, so if my extended family finds out, I'm fucked. He's not very understanding and is very... mm, not kind, and his wife is actively phobic, and mean about it, so... I knew I couldn't stay there forever, but I'm not sure where else to go to be honest. I really like the freedom to write at work from time to time, and I like being alone all the time, and yeah the no AC sucks, but I do like the large indoor warehouse that I can pace while I work in, really crank up those steps, I hit 21k-24k regularly, and I really like that. It could be hard to find something else... Oh, and the sun, I do NOT get along well with the sun, so an outdoors job is right out... I know I'm being really picky and focusing on the weird details, but I really don't want to lose my job here. I have safety, kinda? Not really because if I come out I'm gone, but right now, no matter how late I show up, or what i do while I'm there, I will never get fired, and THAT is a safety. I'm not replaceable, and maybe I can use that to my advantage? I don't know... Maybe my lil sis will move in for more than 3 days a week and pay rent and we can split the costs? but she's part time and would need a new job anyway so ehhhh...
I don't know, it seems like a good ending, it's not perfect, but it's better than I was hoping for at least? I really think they want to try. I was in full fem clothes, all my makeup, with sparkles and like, a lower cut top and jewelry to show that I'm really a girl, and yeah, I know I looked extra and flashy, much more than I usually do, but I wanted to make a point. I think they noticed, and I mentioned to them that I tried to present as girly as possible just for them, so I think that helped them understand how important it was to be seen as a woman. My mom even texted me late last night and told me she thought I looked lovely. That... made me cry pretty hard, in a good way.
I have a lot of hope for the future, and I really think it's going to be ok, despite how chaotic and stressful this week has been. 

Today is Sunday, and I'm starting up my juice fast again, I'll eat a bit today, but not dinner, and then I'll break the fast Friday at work with some vegan jerky, hopefully that works much better than last time. I am SO looking forward to it, the clarity, the focus, the clean feeling, my stomach not hurting at all... It'll be fantastic!

I also read a little comic this week, it just came out, and it's adorable! I took a picture of the cover because like I was told, this blog needs more pics. It's not the book I was reading, but when it arrived, I just had to read it, it was soooo cute...
It's called Lucky Cap Scouts, and it's by O. Stevens. It's a Silver Sprocket comic, and the art style is wonderful!

It's about a girl who can't stop buying lil guys, like blind box figures? and they're all so cute and sweet she just has to keep buying more and more. As someone who used to be WAY too into blind box figures and lil guys in general, it was really relatable. The scouts all have funny personalities and gimmicks that make them individuals, but the main one, Checkers, has a bit of a mental breakdown about their identity. I think it's a good read if you can grab it, it comes with stickers, and a cool postcard, so give it a try!

Thank you all so much for sticking around, and sorry it's been 5 days since my last update, I was a girl in crisis, but hopefully it'll be ok!

Until next time,

Erica

I'm back! It's been a bit, but I am back. I haven't had much to say so I kinda held off on making a post. I have been writing though! Not the story I was working on, but a new thing, based on a dream I had Sunday night. It was very nice and cozy and it had a lot of fun friends in it, and I really want to make it into a story, but I'm not quite sure how it'd look yet. I thought about making it from the perspective of the person in the dream that was out of place, the normal guy, but then I'd have to write from the perspective of a guy, and... I don't know if I want to do that. I drew a lot of pictures of the characters, and I kinda want to post them here and share my ideas, but... I'm ass at art, and the pictures look like a 5 year old drew them if I'm honest. I think I'd be embarrassed if anyone saw them. I do want to do the whole story though, it shouldn't be too long, and it'd be something light hearted to work on while I work on my other, not at all light hearted story.
I've been told I need something else on my blog to make it look better, to look more unique. more pictures, more links, make the page extend all the way out to each side instead of just going in the middle, idk, I thought it was cozy, but maybe not. I'm looking at a layout designer that I may use, but as for more pictures... I  don't know, maybe pictures of the book covers I'm talking about? Something like that? I'm sure I'll figure out something, I really want this blog to be a success.

Still no word from the parents since I came out, pure radio silence. I can't say I'm too upset, I feel like the anticipation is killing me, but the idea of actually having them tell me to my face "We don't think you're a real woman and we will never accept you" is stomach churning...
Being trans is hard enough without all this drama going on. I've got a huge black hole in my chest sucking away all my joy and self confidence, and then my 'family' comes along like "oh, yeah, we're with the hole". 
I really wanted to build a community with my writing and this blog and my discord server, a place where I could find other trans girls and maybe find friends, but I kinda wonder if I'm in a quarantine, like online. Have I mentioned that before? It seems familiar, but the thing is, I try to join servers, and no one responds to me or really engages with me, I try to make friends, and people stop talking to me after a bit, I try to make a blog on a website that I'm seeing other people get 1000s of views on, and I'm still under 150, and I'm pretty sure a lot of those are just like, bots.
I know the first step is to produce content worth sticking around for, and I will, I'm working hard, I just have a hard time sticking to one thing, I float around and I really need to focus on getting ONE thing done. but I feel if I don't at least get my ideas down for other stuff, then I'll lose it forever... It's tricky, it's a hard balance of "don't let good ideas go" and "just finish the project, damnit"
I'll try and get the big project finished soon, I really will work on it, and then I will be free to write the silly one all the time! I just need to power through this rough bit and be free to fly through the rest, and I can do it. Not tomorrow though, I have a big work thing to do, and I have to see my boss, and... I really don't like my boss, and I won't have a chance to write. But I'll work on it Thursday at least, if not Friday too!
Sorry if this post is kinda all over the place, I'm dealing with some big emotions (dysphoria, frustration, insecurity, fear, and the feeling all my friends look down on me, the usual) but this time the static and brain worms aren't coming in to muddle things up and save me, so I  get to feel alllllll of those emotions in crystal clear Estro-Vision. I'll be ok, but my insides are all tied up, so my writing comes out tied up too.

I am like, halfway through reading my next book, I'll have it done by Friday at the latest, so I can tell you about it then! I think it's really good so far, and the emotions of the book are playing on my emotions in real life, so that's... weird, but it feel nice.

I think I'll find something nostalgic to watch tonight, something... cartoon-y and old. I'll see what I can find, but hopefully it levels me out!

Until next time,

Erica

Hello friends! I think because of my fast, I just haven't written anything fiction all week, I don't know why, I've brainstormed ideas for other projects, so I was feeling creative, I just didn't have the drive. I did get my YouTube watch later down into the single digits though, so... That's something. I can't wait until I'm done with it fully and I can stop visiting that hell site, go back to, idk, podcasts or something. I play rougelikes while I "watch" yt, so it gives me a feeling of double productive, but a lot of the time I don't really need to know about what I'm watching, it's just fluff. I am not against learning about stuff because you want to, even if it's 'useless', I just often realize halfway through a video that... I do not care about the subject at all actually, why did I click on it? 
Anyway, I have several stories lined up now either way after the one I'm working on, so I'm pretty excited to finish up and get moving forward with them. I'm at a difficult part of the story rn in the one I'm working on, and it kinda makes me feel ehhhh to write it, but I need to for the story, and I think once I'm past it, it'll be quick to finish, and then I can start editing it and re-writing the bad parts, but I am not letting myself do ANY edit work until the end. It'll come soon, I will make an effort to get past the part I'm at now this week and hopefully get to a place where I can finish it out fast.

I ended my fast last night with a personal vegan kale and mushroom pizza (well, half of one) and two brownies with frozen non dairy treat on top. 
That... was a mistake. I kept it down for all of like 30 minutes. I found out that you're supposed to actually have a high protein snack to break the fast, then a few hours later, eat a high protein small meal. Not pizza and brownies, no matter how hungry you are. So like, a few hours after the pizza, I had some plant based jerky, and I felt fine, so now I'm going to try a refried bean and rice burrito, see if I can handle it.  I don't think I lost nearly as much as I wanted, but weight cycling is a process, and I'll get better hips and stuff soon, just gotta eat normal for a week or so, then try juice fasting again for another 5 days. I think it'll help in the long run at least, and I felt sooooo good while I was on the fast, wth, I felt so powerful and energetic, it was amazing...
Overall I think it was a good experiment, and I did lose a bit of weight that I'll be able to gain back in the right places, but... I don't have a ton to lose, so it's hard to lose what I have. It is what it is.

My parents still haven't quite gotten over me coming out, my dad said he wanted to call and talk it over with me, but he wanted to wait until he had time to process it, but that was like almost two weeks ago, and... nothing. So I think he's not accepting it and just doesn't want to say. My brother E is going to come to my rescue though, he's coming down in a few weeks, and he's going to tell them "accept her, or you can't come to my wedding" lol. We shall see how that works, but it's really nice to know he's so firmly supporting me, he's great.

Until next time,

Erica

It's Tuesday! I've been having some trouble with Neocities recently, I don't really know how, but it un-posted two of my most recent posts, and I had to go in and re-make them (Luckily I compose my posts in cryptpad so they were still there) but it's such an odd problem, and I'm not sure why they're not staying up... I'm new to this whole "website" thing, so like, maybe it's something simple I'm just missing. I also lied in my last post. I haven't been checking discord, so... I have no idea if anyone has joined, and I'm really really sorry if you have, I'll be back soon, I just think I need a break, and discord isn't super healthy for you.

Speaking of healthy, I've been trying a juice fast! I haven't had any solid foods since Saturday night, so like... 60 hours without eating? It's been fun, I thought I'd be hungry and get headaches, but I really haven't at all! I have been drinking tea, fruit juice, and V8 instead of eating, and I really like it. I like the way I feel inside, and my mind feels so weirdly sharp, like there's no static or brainworms at all! I want to wait until Friday night to eat because that's pizza night with lil sister, and the vegan pizzas we get are kinda small, but like, she only eats a few pieces and I don't want them to go bad in the fridge. I have thought about breaking the fast on Thursday night instead, make it a 5 day fast, which is supposed to be a starter fast, but I'm not sure. I eventually want to get up to the 14-30 day fasts, but I don't know how I'd do on one of those? 
I'm mostly doing it to shrink my stomach capacity, boost my metabolism, and start the process of weight cycling so I can be the right shape, but I'm not sure if it'll work. I'm still making sure to hit my 10k-20k steps a day, and working out every night, so I should still stay healthy even though I'm having way more sugar than I'm used to in the juice (I usually have like, one cookie a day or something, sugar wise)

My parents still haven't said anything about me coming out, it's... stressful. My dad said he'd call when he processed it, but it's been 5 days and nothing, so eeek... I did see my mom Saturday though, I tried to talk about it with her but she just said I was "jumping into it all at once" like I haven't been wearing affirming clothes and wearing makeup in private for almost 8 years at this point, much less the past 12 years online I've been presenting as a girl, or the times in my childhood I'd borrow her or my sister's clothes, or all my self insert characters in my stories being girls, or... Well there's a lot. I've been building up to it for a long, long time, and I should have come out and started HRT like 8 years ago, when I finally said "I can't fight this any more, I'm trans". I really regret not doing that. At the time I was like "Well, early 20s is way too late for HRT, I'll never look how I want, why try at all?" and now here I am 7-8 years later almost 6 months in to HRT seeing changes in my face and skin that I never thought possible. If I had started back then, I'd most likely pass now, and have a different job where I could come out without being fired (Although I'm 75% sure they know, at least one coworker called me out on it and I had to be like "oh, uhh, yeah, I'm queer but I don't want to get into specifics at work" and she just kinda looked at me like 'ok, yeah')
I have what I have, and I still have roughly 2.5 more years to go before I see who I am on the other side of HRT, and... I really hope I like her, because I'm putting a lot of hope in these little pills. I know some people say HRT can keep changing you for 5+ years, but realistically, most of the changes happen in 3, so that's what I'm looking ahead for. My end goal is to be able to walk down the street or through a store and not be called slurs or made fun of, because no one can tell. I've been told I could pass with good makeup or the right clothes, but I am kinda tall and I am bad at makeup lol. If I lose the 3 inches some other women lose on HRT I'll be the right hight, and I can get better at makeup, but we'll have to see how good it looks overall. For now, I have a very fem covid mask that I wear when I go out, and I've been 'ma'am'ed a few times in it, so it's very helpful!

I also finished reading that book I have been working on all week! It was called 'LOTE' by Shola von Reinhold, and it was very well written. It had a feeling of importance the whole time, and it did that thing where it jumped between the story and parts of other books and then back again without warning. It felt very... Crafted, like it was very deliberately written in a way which would draw the reader in and then offset them over and over again. It follows a lady named Mathilda(maybe?) who is studying individuals she calls her "transfictions", most notably Hermia Druit, a black poet from Scotland who seems to have been fully forgotten by history. She is very obsessed with this person, to the point she lies her way into a residency at a place engaging in a concept called "thought art", which is very boring and pretty much the opposite of Mathilda's personality. I think it's a really fun book that has a strong focus on black european history and a ton of queerness, and it really felt like something the author poured herself into and filled in all the little cracks of the story with bits of herself. It was a harder read than the books I've read recently, and I really liked that, it made me think, made me focus on meanings and connections. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in black history or turn of the century high society.

The next book I read, this week's comic, was "Sad Girl Space Lizard" by Iggy Craig. I had a lot of fun reading it, and while it does have a sketchy style, it is another 18+ comic, but not as much as the last one I mentioned. I'm kinda trying to reconnect to my 'adultness' and for the past almost 2 years, I've had little to no interest in anything 18+, so engaging in comics like this that have it but also have a different story and overall meaning will hopefully help me to re-grow interest in adult stuff, because... I know it's really hard to find a partner that will be ok with you never being 'interested' in them... The story itself is about two space lizards, Left and Right who live in a giant mech, and are fighting off big worms in space, it's mostly about tension and frustration and built up sexual energy and misplaced aggression, but it's got a lot about self acceptance and self recontextualization too. I like the art style, and the "big buff girl and little twig girl" dynamic is fun too. Overall, I think it's a fun, semi-serious look at a world where dragons and anoles can pilot mechas and work through anger and self loathing by kissing, and I think that's sweet.

This post's song is... hmm, how about "Severed Hand" by Local News Legend. It's a song about the singer's life and how everything in it builds up and just makes stuff that she know should be bad just... wash by her. I feel that. I don't know everything she's gone through, but I do know that feeling, I feel it myself. She says "I've seen more dead bodies than I would really like to share / And sometimes I look deep into the mirror and try to cut my hair / But I see fear and shame and everything a girl just shouldn't feel / I see a girl who's tired / A girl who isn't real" and that sensation of un-real, the feeling of being someone else from the person in the mirror, seeing your emotions like they're on someone else, I hate that, and I feel better about myself knowing other people get that same feeling. I actually met the singer/writer for this one once, Emily, and we chatted for a bit. We didn't talk about this one, but we did talk about another of her songs that I'll put as the daily song in the future. She was really nice, and it was one of my favorite concerts I've been to, just 20-30 people in the back of an unused building sitting on the grass. It was really nice...

Until next time,

Erica

Hello! I've been very overwhelmed with a lot of stuff and honestly haven't read or written all week really. Kinda sucks, idek what I did instead??? I don't have any social media, I played a video game one time, but... Other than that, I'm not sure what happened this week. My stomach kinda hurts, and has since Sunday when I came out to my mom, and I wrote a letter to my dad coming out to him, and he read it last night. Both he and my mom were basically like "That sucks, let me think about it" and... I have no idea how they took it or how they are feeling about it, and they're being very diplomatic about it which makes me wonder if they're not ok, and trying to hide it. It's tricky and pretty rough, I just wish I knew.

I also got in a huge fight with some friends this week, we argued for hours and hours about stupid political stuff. I don't even like political stuff, I just like, know what I believe, and I don't believe in supporting the "lesser" of two evils. They called me "not fluent in geopolitics" and implied that I was only a leftist for selfish moral reasons. Straight up told me I may as well stay home in the elections if I'm going to vote socialist. Idk, I think I need a wider circle of friends, but also I think that maybe it's time to delete discord. It's my only social media (if you can call it that, I only talk in two private servers), and I'm feeling like it's starting to have an effect on me. There's a ton of reasons why I don't do any kind of social media, and I'm kinda starting to wonder why I'm making an exception here. I already have to leave it for days and days at a time because of the brainworms, and when I do go on it, I just argue and fight. I guess I just keep it because it's the easiest way to talk to my brother, E. He doesn't text much I think, and we use the discord voice call to chat and game at the same time (Usually I play FFXIV and he plays Overwatch) so I'd hate to lose that connection with him.
I'm not going to delete my account on discord yet, and I'll be checking in time to time to see if anyone joined my server for this website (still no one yet, but I have hope!) but I am seriously thinking about it. I don't think people want me around in the servers I'm in, usually only one person responds to me in one server and it's to argue half the time. Everyone seems to talk way more when I'm not there, so... I think I'm bringing it all down. Which is understandable, I'm obviously not like, super easy to talk to (or read I'd imagine) so I get why people tend to ignore my stuff, I'm not salty, just... kinda lonely.

I just wish I knew how to meet people in real life. I got invited to a protest last night, and I almost went, but I had a chemical burn and I wanted to take care of it so I didn't go. All the people there got tear gassed and my friend got beat up on by cops, so... That's really scary. I want to be able to be there and make a difference, and yeah, I admit it, there's a level of guilt that I'm not out there doing it (I know that's the wrong reason to protest, but it's been weighing on me) so I want to go out there and help, I really do, but I'm so scared of going in public at all, much less a place where I'm going to be tear gassed and beaten and arrested. I feel like such a loser for not being out there, for not helping to fight for Palestine's freedom, for a socialist America (I'd prefer an Anarcho-Syndicalist America but socialism is cool too). Idk, one day I hope.
I think if I could meet people irl, other trans women, I'd be more... grounded? I'd have a better grasp on what's real and who I can trust and what to expect and stuff. Plus I don't really have any close trans women friends. I used to have a couple, but one is terf-y and one... doesn't talk to me anymore, just sends the occasional emote or "oofles" when I try to talk to her. It's really sad, and I really, really want more friends who are like me. I joined a discord recently that was supposed to be for LGBTQ+ FFXIV players, and I was excited because everyone knows, like, a third of the playerbase is trans women stg. But when I joined, it seemed to all be masc people doing all the talking, and like, I don't have problems being friends with masc people (it seems like those are the only friends I have atm) but like, I wanted fem friends, someone to talk about stuff with that masc people tend to... not enjoy or care about. Someone to ask advice or just chat with I guess. I've never had the chance to be "one of the girls" and that sounds pretty nice ngl. Sorry for rambling, I've just got a lot on my mind, and I'm not sure what to do or where to go. I feel like I need a change, a fresh start, but I can't imagine a fresh start where things would be better, so maybe not?

I've been having trouble writing lately, and looking back at the stuff I've written, it's kinda bad. I'll need to go over and re-write what I have before I share it, but I don't want to do that until I'm done with everything in the story. I think my skills are slipping, despite me trying to write more frequently. I almost want to take a break from my fiction stuff and type up some of my spiritual stuff I believe, but I think if I did, I wouldn't go back to the story, and I'm so, so close to finishing. Like, less than a third left.

Anyway, no book talk or music recommendations today, maybe soon when I can finish the book I started this week, or when I can think about music more clearly than I can now. Hopefully soon!

Until next time,

Erica

Well, I think I have begun to slip again, Luckily the brainworms aren't there now, but the static is, and it's getting a bit loud. I'm not sure where it comes from, but I'm thinking it's some kind of emotional distress that lasts and lingers in the back of my mind long after the thing that set me off has left. Yesterday I waxed poetic for a while in one of the discords I'm in (not the one linked in the sidebar, that one is still empty) and I talked about humanity and the innermost desires and lights of someone, and the desire to be a human animal, to embrace your basest desires of love, lust, violence, empathy, passion, impulse, the real stuff, the stuff at your center that wasn't put there by trauma or an ad or people who force ideas on people when they don't understand them. The place where my spirituality comes from, my fire and light and danger and pain, the place I can feel and know that I'm trans from. The human underneath the humanity.

I was very passionate about it, I was really trying to word it in the best, most raw way possible. I really wanted others to understand what I meant and what I was saying from my heart. But the only one of my friends who even engaged with me instantly started comparing me to Tyler Durden (which, ew, that's the far opposite of what I was saying wtf) and trying to tie my ideas into the Persona video games. It just... really felt like a cheapening of what I was saying, like it sucked out the light and energy and turned it into something to consume. I hate that, so, so much.
And apparently the way I described thing and tried to get my ideas across were too gory and graphic, and gave this friend nightmares last night, which... just made me feel really shitty. For one, I ruined their night, and for another, it makes it really hard to know how to express myself in that group now. I wasn't trying to be scary or gory, I was just trying to say things as my emotions felt them, and I guess that was too much. It also makes it hard to want to share my writing with that friend, who is literally the only person aside from my brother and sister who has even shown any kind of interest at all in reading my work. If what I was saying yesterday made them uncomfortable and gave them nightmares, I can't in good conscience let them read the kind of thing I write in my fiction, I'm actually TRYING to have scary stuff in there.
Idk, hopefully whenever I finish the story, all my readers will love it and join the discord and talk to me about it!

Speaking of my readers... I broke 100 views on this website! I know that's not a lot, but I'm proud of it, and I think it's really cool that at least some real people have read what I have to say (I know most are bots, but still). I wanted to celebrate somehow, but I can't think of anything, so I guess this post is the celebration!

I... Also came out to my mom on Sunday, that night after my post. It went ok, she didn't use my real name or pronouns, but... it's hard to do that in a conversation with that person, it's kinda awkward, so I get it. She let me talk to my little brothers, so I think I'll still be allowed to see them, and she has been texting me a bit so she's not cutting me off. I do still have to come out to my dad though, not sure how I'm going to do that, it's... very scary. Idk, maybe I just call him up one day and say "Hey, dad, good news, you have another daughter!" Or something. I know he wants to have a relationship with "me", but I'm not sure he would want a relationship with ME. There's a wedge between us already, partly because of this, partly because of... Stuff that happened when I was 10-18-ish, and partly because he's been really dangerous to be around for long periods of time during my childhood. My mom says he's getting better, and that he's ok now, but like, those were my formative years, it's hard to shake that.

I've not finished the most recent book I'm reading, I'm at the halfway point though. It's a very dense book content-wise, and it's by design. It's very beautifully written, and I'm really looking forward to telling you about it because I'm really enjoying it so far! Hopefully I finish it soon, work has me running around like crazy, so... Maybe soon. 

Today's song is "Practical Effects" by The Great Twitch. It's another beautifully violent love song, a wonderfully painfully toxic relationship founded on mutual hurt. The line "Existence is a prison but I'll share a cell with you" perfectly matches what I need in a romantic relationship, and the verse "Who needs a knife when you have nails / Crocheting blankets from entrails / Cuddling up beneath them next to you" is just so... eloquent. The whole song is a wonderful mix of love and violence and madness and hurt. It's not a "healthy" song, but I understand every line and where it comes from (yeah I know that says a lot about me) but despite the darkness and pain, it still feels hopeful, it's about a transformation through suffering, mutual suffering, and it's so comforting to hear. It's made me cry several times tbh. I really think you should go listen to it, I think it's worth hearing at least once even if you don't enjoy it.

Until next time,

Erica

Hello all! I have been working on my story, and... it's finally 17,500 words! (actually 18,300) but that means it's no longer a story, and it's now a novella! I know, I know, it took me 15 days to write about 3k-4k words, it's not great, but with the... issues from last week I think it's ok. I'll hopefully be working much harder on it this week, I am done with the big presentation, and hopefully my boss accepts it, it's a TON of money, but I did my part, it's up to him to accept it. But that means I won't be doing early morning meetings and calls and staying late to finish spreadsheets and stuff, so hopefully I'll have more energy to write!

In other news, me and my lil sister tried the new "Nuka Victory" soda! It was a promotion with the fallout show (which was great btw, The Ghoul is the best) and both her and I love the games (well, she's only played 4, but that still counts) so we got some of the soda! One of our bottles was kinda wonky, so that's the one we chose for the taste test, and one was perfect, so I'm putting that one with my other soda bottles.

The soda itself was pretty yummy, it had a good color to it, it wasn't as glow-y as the game version, but it was very neon, which was really fun


We each got about half the bottle and tried to give our first impressions. I said it was very sweet, and had a much stronger peach flavor than mango, with a little bit of bitterness under the sweet overlay, and a very underwhelming, flat aftertaste. She said it was very good, and wants to see it on shelves full time, and said it wasn't very sweet, and she didn't taste the bitterness, and said the peach and mango was blended very well. She drinks wayyyy more soda than I do (I'll have a red bull once a week, maybe once every two weeks, she drinks monsters and dr pepper like water) so the difference in how we experienced the sweetness made sense
Overall, I think it was a fun, tasty soda that is worth picking up from Jones if they have any left, I won't be getting any more, but it's worth trying at least.

I haven't read any books since we last spoke (I know, I like telling you about books, I just haven't had a chance) but I did pick out my next one to read, it's going to be more serious I think, and I'm looking forward to it! hopefully I'll have it finished soon and I can let you know how it was!

Today's song is "Cannibal Girlfriend" by Baby Bugs. It's a song about... well, most likely abuse and a toxic relationship actually, but it SOUNDS like a song about a lesbian cannibalistic relationship where the singer is fully willing to give up chunks of herself, her blood, her very heart for the sake of her girlfriend... I really like the imagery, and the way the singer seems enamored and head over heals for the cannibal is adorable, I really love that dynamic, and I think it's a very sweet song when taken at face value.

Until next time,

Erica

I'm back, fully back to myself and feeling fine! I don't really know what caused it but like I'm glad it's over, for now at least. I'm working on a really big project at work (the kind of thing that could triple the value of the whole company) and I'm... fairly stressed about it because I'm getting pushback from one of the people who makes the decision. I really think it'd be good for the company, and I think it'd be good long term because we're not outpacing inflation as it is, but... The bosses don't seem to want change so aaaagh it's frustrating... I've spent like three weeks on it so far (...ok, maybe not as much last week obviously) and I drove hours to meet with people and stayed late to get spreadsheets done, and the boss is just being like "welllll I don't know it's a good idea to change..." while we're losing value every single year with no end in sight. I am kinda biased against the boss as it is already anyway because he's an ass and kinda hits on me in the most awkward way possible. I'm not like, out to him? but people have told me it's obvious at this point, so maybe that's it, but he's... gross about it, which sucks. I avoid him if I can. I'd quit, but I need the paycheck to pay my bills, so I'm in a gilded cage, as my friend put it. I could look for another job, but with me having a 2 year degree instead of a 4 year one, and only about 6-7 years of management experience I would be taking a big paycut. And they most likely wouldn't let me wear unisex jumpsuits to work. That's a nice perk. Maybe I'll start looking seriously if this deal falls through due to his short sighted-ness though, if I wasn't here, I could interview places as my real self, and get hired as a woman, and not have to worry about the game of "how much 'me' can I show before I get in trouble? Painted nails are not ok? alright, how about jewelry? Only some? Hmm..". If that happens... I may come out to my parents too. I risk not being able to see my siblings, but... I'd be myself all the time, never having to wear a disguise, and that would be so freeing...

In non-rant-y news... Book review! Ok, so I admit it... I skipped ahead in my reading list this week... I didn't even check what was next, I just dug wayyyyyy down the stack to get to book 2 of the Nemesis series; Sovereign. I really wanted more trans superhero stuff, what can I say. I really don't like much superhero content to be honest, DC and Marvel are usually kinda "eh" to me (with exceptions of course) and the movies are stale by now, but I love the IDEA of superheroes. I love love love Worm by Wildbow, and The Boys and Invincible are both pretty good, but other than that I don't consider myself a fan of much superhero stuff at all. The Nemesis series has 100% made my list of super powered stuff I love, no question. I love the queer-centric story, the characters, the world and lore that's slipped in, the writing is super fun, and it's in first person present tense, which is one of my favorite ways to read, although I have trouble writing in it at times. I thought that the second book was much better than the first one (not saying the first one wasn't amazing though) and it had even more of a feeling of maturity and gravitas about the topics it discussed. I think the developing changes in the character's relationships were really well done, and we got a lot of interesting fights too that highlighted the issues with being a human, with issues, but also a human with power, through the eyes of someone we see as a good person. There was a bit of that in the first book, but I think the second book pulled it off more often and a bit more impactfully, especially a couple scenes in particular. I am glad I skipped ahead, and I really really want the author April Daniels to write more! The book is about 7 years old now, and it came out the same year as the first one, so... I can only hope that means we're going to see an absolute monster of a book for part 3, maybe 500-600 pages? Please?... A girl can hope at least lol.

This week's comic was "Influenca" by Jade LFT Peters, and....... Oh boy it was just about the sweetest thing I've read in a while... Disclaimer for my readers, it's 18+ and it earns that very strongly (there was discussion among the author's friends if it counted as porn) but even if you're not into that stuff (like I'm not) it's still SO worth a read. It's about a team of two zombie hunters in the post apocalypse, and they are also social media influencers! They fight zombies, save lives, and post hot instagram pics with their weapons and gear, and they are sooooo in lesbians with each other. It's really cute and sweet and just such a heartwarming little comic, it's so short, but I really think it's worth it. My copy had a scent to it, ink for sure, but maybe also... floral? I'm not sure if it was meant to, I ordered it from Silver Sprocket directly and the other stuff I get from them doesn't have a scent, but like, I didn't hate it?? It may have just been the ink, I know ink can be sweet smelling sometimes, and this book JUST came out like, idk, a month ago so that may be it, but I liked it. As for what the ink was used for, I really like the art style, the squiggles on the cheeks of the characters is charming, and the body of "the muscle" (Dodie) was refreshingly realistic, despite being absolutely jacked. I always like that in strong characters, yeah I like stronk people as much as the next girl, but let me see scars, body fat, poor posture, like, real people stuff. I eat that up, and Peters really nailed it for me in this comic..

I found a new song that makes me sooooo happy too I wanted to share, it's an older one, so you may have heard of it, but it's called "The Horror of Our Love" by Ludo, it's so romantic and beautiful, the line "Hold you down and tear you open,- Live inside you, love, I'd never hurt you - But I'll grind against your bones until our marrows mix - I will eat you slowly" gives me chills... It's such a song about pure love and passion and the desire to be fully with someone, to be inside them and to have them inside you, to mix and blend and fulfil yourselves with each other's bodies and it's mutual! That's the important part, it's both people in the song clashing and crushing and eating and drowning the other, and it's from love... I think it's a wonderful song, and the artist had a great quote about it that I'll share here; "This song is about profoundly loving (or lusting after) someone so overflowingly that it devastates you. Where your physical person cannot possibly contain your emotion, but that emotion still begs for physical expression. And even still, no affection or act or word can satisfy it."

I feel that in the song, I want that for myself, and I think the fact that such an emotion, a description for that emotion exists in the form of a fun song just makes me happy...

Until next time,

Erica

I think I'm starting to feel a little bit better, I think typing and reading helps a lot. I have been... listening to a LOT of music lately to shut out the stuff I don't want to think about, and as a result I barely got any done on my story. I feel so bad about it because I started this blog TO post stories, but that part of my brain is so foggy and I think without someone experienced to help me edit I really don't think it's going to be very good. I am much better at writing stuff like this, or like, writing descriptions or rules and stuff, I can FLY through that stuff, it's soooo easy; worldbuilding? Zooooom, 10k words in a day. No prob. But story stuff is a lot harder, it's tricky and it needs to be detailed and special. I love it and I NEED to get my stories and ideas out, even if it's hard. I just want this period of... idk, mania? sometimes? Whatever this is that I'm going through, I want it over so I can write more easily and just... get stuff done, create, share my insides! Idk, maybe not, maybe I need to learn to use the fog and static, or at least how to work through it, if I wait around for the perfect headspace to write in, I'll write once a month tops.

Anyway, since we last spoke, I read "Stitches" by Hirokatsu Kihara and Junji Ito. It was a series of short scary stories published in a serialization and then collected, and I was pretty excited for it, I thought "Oh, I bet it'll be like Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark, but with Junji Ito doing the art instead of Stephen Gammell!" and... not really... It lacked all sense of dread and actual fear that most short horrors strive for (even kid's horror) and all of the stories had such lackluster endings it just felt like the author was pulling back to not scare anyone "too bad". As a result, the "scary" stories were just stories with unexplained supernatural happenings. The best part was by far Ito's art, but even that lacked his usual passion and detail, the only pieces that really stood out to me as something that felt like him were the spreads of Mrs A, and The Lips, the rest just... didn't feel like he cared that much. I was pretty disappointed in it, and not just because I spent $17 I didn't have to spend on a mid book, but because I really feel like if the two creators put a little more edge and passion into it, it really could have been what I was hoping for...

I also read Viscera Objectica by Yugo Limbo! I looooove their first book, Be Kind, My Neighbor and I was really hoping this book captured the sweet, sensual, atypical feeling of love that that one did, and I really think it did! I can't quite relate to the character or the real life people listed in the back, but I still understand it. I've always felt there's a sort of "character" to some objects, some things are just... more than things. I have a teddy bear named Roger (modeled after Bridget's Roger from GGS) and like, yeah, he's 100% more than an object. He's not the same Roger from the game, he's a new unique individual that just happens to live in the body of a teddy bear that looks like that Roger. He's got a nice, pretty amber aura inside him that I can feel if I close my eyes and let myself sink into him, and like, there's a call and response going on with him. He doesn't "talk" ofc, but I can ask him questions and get "vibes" or feel what he's intoning, even if no words were used. I'm not sure when he "woke up" but I think it was because he's soooooo good to hug, and I used him as a huggable fear/anxiety blocker a lot, so I was using him to get good feelings, and block the bad ones, and when you hold something to your chest and focus on it, especially in times of great emotion, yeah, you put power into it. Usually that power just... Stays there? It doesn't turn into anything, unless you make a sigil or a servator or something, so I'm... honestly not sure what Roger is or how he is, but he IS. And that's all that really counts to me. It's not... really the same as the comic, but... I can understand there being more powerful feelings attracted to a "non living" thing.

Today I've been listening to "Transvestites Can Be Cannibals Too" by Harley Poe. I don't really love the term 'transvestite' tbh bc people seem to equate it to transgender people just because it has the word "trans" in it, but I think it fits well in the context of the song, and I support people who identify with that term, so even if, yeah, it's a kinda offensive term that nowadays has devolved into being used as a slur against trans people (who are largely a different group altogether), I think the song is amazing and I love it, and Joe Whiteford can obviously use whatever term he chooses to refer to himself. To me the song highlights identity and self expression in all aspects of your life, and how even parts of you that don't seem to have anything to do with each other reflect and change other parts of your life and how you see those parts too. Plus the obvious message of "be yourself, fuck the world and eat anyone who disagrees" is great, we need more "fuck it, eat them" responses to people who hate and degrade others.

Until next time,

Erica

Hey all, I'm feeling a bit better today. Not "better" better, but better. The static is fading and it's getting more manageable, but the brainworms are still in full swing let me tell ya... Lots of stuff I don't like going in and out of my thought process. I'm alone at work today, and that's a blessing, because I don't know if I could talk like a normal person right now. Typing is ok though, it's like, I can see the words so they don't get away from me. Last time I was like this around people at work people avoided me because they couldn't really understand my train of thought I think. I've been having a rough day either way though, I always do after the static goes away, it's like all the stuff that was hidden in the static just BAM comes back in full all at once. I almost threw up from dysphoria earlier, and it's getting pretty bad today and idk how to stop it. I really am doing better than yesterday though, despite the issues and scary thoughts and stuff, just being able to feel myself in my body is pretty good I think.

I know I usually wait a few days between posts, but like, I wanted to get my impressions of a book I read today out while they were still fresh. I didn't have TOO much work today, so I read an entire book (and a comic) in one sitting (minus the couple of times I got up and paced for a while bc I can't sit still). It was called "Dreadnought" by April Daniels, and it's the first book in the "Nemesis" series, which currently has like, 2 books. I'm not gonna lie, I got this one because I was hoping it'd read like a slightly more queer version of the Parahumans universe by Wildbow, and... well, not to compare the two too strongly, but it very much nailed that vibe for me. It has a trans girl character (and I do mean girl, she's only 15) who is shifted into a new, gender affirming body after a run-in with a superhero. It's a very "I wanted this to happen to me, so I wrote about it happening to my character" kind of story, and it is awesome for that, I too wanted that exact thing to happen to me at that age, so I relate. I really enjoyed it, despite it being for, well, 15 year olds, and it has a hint of maturity under the teen friendly writing. I usually don't like stuff that's for teens exclusively, but this one hooked me, through both engaging writing and a very queer narrative. It deals with serious political topics, but it also makes sure to highlight the interesting ways someone's life changes after transitioning, and how it's not an easy path even if you could transition instantly. I will 100% be reading the sequel, and I look forward to seeing Danny's journey as the series goes on.

I also read Julia Kaye's second "Super Late Bloomer” collection; My Life In Transition. It wasn't as tear inducing as the first one, but it WAS a good read. I love her honesty and openness about her life, and while she's years ahead of me in both physical and social transitioning, I could still see myself in a lot of the comics, and it was pretty fun to read too. I like to swap between comics and word books to let myself kinda have a variety, but I think I only have a few comics left, and my word book "to-read" pile is up to my ribs. Like, it's actually up to my ribs now. I can't afford books right now (or much of anything really) so it's a comfort to know I have that many to go before I need to restock, but still, it's like... "I want all of the stuff in these in my brain ASAP!" so it pulls me in two directions.

I think typing out stuff in this blog is really helping me be more stable, it feels nice to talk to... no one I guess, but the great void of anyone! It's like, someone COULD see this, and it's a comfort. I need to work more on my story, and I think maybe tomorrow I'll be up to it, but I think this blog is more important for my mind than the stories I want to put here.

That said, I still want to share my work with you, of course.

Until next time,

Erica

Hi, I got some work done yesterday after lil sister left, but not as much as I would have liked. My head hurts a lot right now and I'm not sure why, but maybe it's my teeth. Like 5 weeks ago dentist told me I needed to get fillings after a cleaning recently, even though they didn't hurt, and I got the fillings done, and now the teeth she drilled hurt so so bad even though they didn't before, and there's like, sandpaper on them. She was like "you need root canals now" and I didn't before so I'm pretty sure she fucked with my teeth to get me to be stuck going to the dentist, but fuck her, I cancelled my appointments. I'm supposed to talk to another dentist in a couple weeks and see if this one knows better and won't hurt me but who knows.

I think my teeth are making my head hurt, but also making the brainworms and static worse too, idk if it's bc I can't eat or drink without hurting my teeth and I've got no nutrients, or if it's just the pain, but today I'm just static and brain worms. It takes so much effort to focus and push the worm-thoughts out enough to type this and I've had to fix almost every word I typed, it's so frustrating. I have a steady bzzzbzbbbzzzzzbzz in my head too, the static, and that also makes it hard to focus, but I can usually drown that and the brainworms out by playing music (I averaged 11 hours a day on Spotify last year according the little wrap up they do lol) but in this mood it's like, the music isn't doing much tbh.

I'm really trying to write, I am, I really want my brother to read the story, and one of my other friends said they would read it if it wasn't too scary and I don't think it is at all, so like that's two readers, plus you guys, my sacred council (members: 0) so we'll have at least two readers. My mom also wants to read it, I think I mentioned it to her when I was in a weird way, I don't usually loop her into my projects but she knows now somehow. I don't think it's very gender, at least not a lot, so maybe she can read it. I haven't told her I'm trans yet, although I wear my real clothes around her and use my real voice and paint my nails and stuff, but she doesn't come over much so she can still fake obliviousness until I tell her plainly. The issue is, she can stop me from seeing my 4 youngest siblings if I do come out, and I love them so much... I really want to be a mom, and getting to hang out with them and ask about their days, and give them popsicles and pizza and play board games or video games with them makes me feel motherly, even if it's really just big sister stuff. I'm very worried that I will lose them. My mom is sweet too, she's just... very phobic. she sobbed when my brother came out as bi, and cried every time his name came up for weeks. He has a gf now tho, so I think she is pretending it "doesn't count" or smth. My dad will probs stop talking to me tho if I come out so... That'd be nice lol. 

I need to figure out why I keep having these overwhelming waves of static and brainworms, I know I can stop it if I can find out why I keep losing myself to it. This post has taken so, so long to write and I'm so hungry, idk. I need to go to therapy, but I need to figure out my teeth first, but maybe once my teeth get healed, or all taken out and replaced with spikey ones to bite chunks off people with then I can afford and have the me for therapy. I am really tired, so I will leave you to it dear reader, and wish me luck in actually getting some work done soon so I can share the content I created this site to share

Until next time,

Erica

Hello reader! I have been working like I said, but the work has been coming slowly... I am only up to 15k words, in 2 whole days... It's not no progress though, just not as much as I wanted. I do have a correction to make however, my story is actually not a story! It is a novella, or at least it will be in another 2,500 words, which it will hit very easily as there is still a loooot to go. It's not the longest thing I've ever written by a long shot (that would be a 300 page TTRPG I made from scratch) or the longest thing I've written recently (40k-50k on a novel I'm writing) but it is the longest thing I'm going to FINISH in the most recent times. I'm not going to rest or wait a second until it's done! Unless I have to go to work, or watch something, or play a game, or... Well, I'm still working hard. I can't work much this weekend because my lil sister lives with me 3-4 days a week and it's kinda rude to like, zone out and bang away on a clackity clack keyboard for hours while someone's trying to sleep or play Animal Crossing right there... 

Today is my 5 month anniversary of starting HRT by the way! It's not a big milestone like 6 months or a year, but it's the first milestone I've actually noticed. It's not working quite like I wanted (read: not as fast lol) but it is working! I have seen a lot of changes in my skin and face, and I thiiiink my body hair? It's hard to tell bc I keep it all gone, so there's none there anyway. The big change ofc is boobs, I have them now! They are noticeable and everything, I have to be careful at work, like slouch a specific way, or they stick out. I did gain like, 7-8 lbs, but it's not too noticeable because I'm like, kinda lanky anyway. But yeah, 5 months! It's really cool to feel the changes! I painted my nails a lovely watermelon as a celebration, but in the shower I cracked one by accident... Just split it right apart, made it all jagged and ugly, kinda sad...

I finished "Brainwyrms" by Alison Rumfitt today, and it was just as good as I thought it'd be! I still recommend it, and the last half of the book got suuuuper fucked up and mmmm I love it. It's a nice, cozy kind of fucked up with parasites and toxic relationships that makes you feel safer in your life to read. After that, I read a couple volumes of a comic my lil sister wanted me to check out called "Unfamiliar", and THAT was a tone shift, it was cute and fluffy and funny and gay, and I see why she liked it, but it helped me get back into the "vibe" of real life after reading half of Brainwyrms in one sitting.

Other that that, not much new news to report, so I'll leave you to it! I'm going to watch a movie with lil sis, something Wes Anderson, nnnot sure what, but it'll be fun either way! Don't forget the discord server too if you want to chat, the link is in my "about me" to the left there, if you have an account, you should join it!

Until next time,

Erica

Hello friends! It is I, Erica, back again. I've been working hard on trying to get the story I'm working on finished to put up here for all of you, and I think it's going pretty well so far! I'm just shy of 13k words, and I'm getting to the crux of the work, so it should flow quickly from there. I'm having a little trouble writing overall because it's hard to focus sometimes, and stuff in my emotional life keeps messing with me, but other times I can channel that raw emotional energy and just fly, I like those times.

Tonight I'm writing a bit, but mostly I'm just hanging out and watching scary videos, because I don't quite have the energy to focus as much as I need to to write on a story. According to one of my friends some of the issues I'm having in my body and brain is because I'm not getting the right vitamins in me, and I need to start taking pre-natal vitamins with omegas and iron, which... I guess is kinda euphoria inducing to think about? (I REALLY want to be a mom, so bad lol) but at the same time I feel bad bc... I'm not pre-natal, I just eat the wrong stuff bc of my dietary restrictions, and it feels bad to take the medicine meant for mothers. Who knows though, maybe the universe will bless me with a child if I take them! I'm... not sure how that would be possible, but I can hope if nothing else.

Ultimately, if taking them improves my drive to write (and stops my teeth from feeling weird), then I'll take them. I really want to be an author who can crank out toooons of stuff all the time, and I know I'm not really very good right now, but the more I write and the more stuff I put out, the better I'll be!

I wanted to set up a discord server and share it here, hopefully make some new friends, so if you're interested in joining we'd love to have you! Well, I would, it's just me at the moment. You can find it here!

I've been reading a really good book called "Brainwyrms" by Alison Rumfitt. When I saw it, I was amazed, because it was about a trans woman and it was called Brainwyrms?? I have intrusive thoughts a lot due to some mental stuff, and I call those thoughts "Brainworms" because of the way they worm around and hide and pop up and push other stuff out of the way to get to the surface, so I instantly bought it. I'm only half way through so far, but... I really enjoy it, it's just the right kind of fucked up, and it's making me feel a lot better about the direction my own writing takes sometimes. Like I said, I'm not done, but as of now I'd recommend it for those with strong stomachs for sure.

Hopefully next time I update I'll have a story to share! It may be a while because I want my brother E to be the first one to read it, and he's very busy, so it may take a while for him to finish it even if I do manage to finish it this week. But that's ok, he's working very hard to be able to move back to my state and I'll get to see him again, so he can take all the time he needs!

Until next time,

Erica

Hello, my name is Erica, and I am an amateur writer in my late 20's. I like to write horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and sometimes romance. I haven't been published yet, but I have three major projects I am working on right now that I hope to see on store shelves one day!

I spend most of my time reading, writing, and trying to learn new things about our world. Right now I'm writing a story I hope to share here for everyone to read! It's about a girl with grey skin and hair in a fantasy town learning more about herself. I like to read a lot, and the last thing I read was a graphic novel called The Third Person by Emma Grove. It was very powerful, and I related a lot to the main character! I really recommend checking it out if you like queer stories. Speaking of queer stories, just as a heads up, I am trans, so many of my stories I will be putting up here will be inherently queer as a result. I write from the heart, and while I do put scary or uncomfortable things in my stories at times, those things are always there for a reason, and that reason is usually a queer one.

I may be posting a few other things on here too, I have some tea reviews I may pop on here, a few mini-essays I wrote about games and movies, and I may just get on and rant about my spiritual beliefs for a bit! This is my website, and I will do with it as I please, and that's a great feeling to have.