Hello! I'm wondering if there is any lore we need to know about before we read the fanfiction pinned to your blog? I'm very interested in the storyline and the fic is amazing so far, thank you so much!

Hmm, I think the fic is pretty self-contained actually. If you know these characters by sight and have a vague idea of what they're about, the rest comes up naturally. Roobrick has a really good understanding of their lore, setting and background and the story is pretty firmly anchored on their actual canon. It mostly deviates from it only when it comes to events they go through. The characterizations, their chemistry and the world building are spot on.

well it's been almost six months which I think is long enough to break my posting embargo, so, uh: guess what! I got liposuction lol. specifically hip/thigh lipo to quell some pretty wicked dysphoria that stemmed from having such a feminine silhouette… and I have to say I'm really, really pleased with the results.

tbh my initial plan was to keep things under wraps for good which is why I haven't said anything about it yet (and even as I'm typing this up I keep debating whether to post it or trash it)—partly because I was/am worried people might Act Weird about it and partly because I get a little embarrassed talking about bodygendershit in general. but here we are. one reason I do feel compelled to finally share, other than being super happy about how everything went, is that I haven't encountered a lot of discussions about body sculpting as a possible avenue of gender-affirming care (although, to be fair, maybe I just haven't been looking in the right places) and I figured at least one person out there would be interested to learn about what I did and where I've ended up so far.

anyway. pics/details under the cut—nothing even remotely risqué (or yucky), I just know that body image stuff is fraught + not everyone is eager to hear surgery talk.

to be precise: I got tumescent liposuction of the inner and outer thigh, plus this ultrasound thing to help the skin shrink. a different surgeon who I consulted (but ultimately did not go with for a number of reasons) said that even if I got the results I wanted from lipo, which he claimed was unlikely, the affected skin would look loose/baggy/weird forever... and that surgeon was wrong on both counts lol. my elasticity was great bitch!!!!

they didn't take out that much fat overall, only eight pounds or so, but it's way more about the Where than the How Much. my actual surgeon (who kicks ass btw) said lipo isn't that great for weight loss per se, and what it's really good for is sculpting targeted areas—so basically exactly what I did. six months post-op I actually weigh about the same as what I did pre-op, but the distribution has held steady; more weight goes to my stomach now and less, proportionally, goes to my hips since there are fewer fat cells in that area now. so my silhouette retains its new shape!

the overall change is admittedly on the subtle side, since I'm pretty short and have wide hip bones (and you can't change your literal skeleton) but it's still gone a looooooong way. the main thing I requested from my surgeon was "I want to fit in men's pants" and boy did he deliver.

also a good place to note that if you're in the las vegas area looking for a plastic and/or cosmetic surgeon—this guy is board-certified in both btw—then I absolutely have the guy for you. feel free to DM me for details. lipo is clearly his specialty (and it shows!) but he also does a lot of breast revisions/mastopexy (i.e., fixing implants that other surgeons did a bad job putting in), regular implants, and face work (particularly facial feminization surgery). one thing that sold me on this guy was an enthusiastic yelp review from a local stripper who said he hid the incisions for her breast lift in her armpits so none of her clients would notice that she'd had work done... a true master of his craft

okay you've scrolled enough so I'll give you what you're here for lol. I don't have many pre-op pics because I was obviously unhappy with how I looked and was not taking full-body selfies on a regular basis, but here's a few I took ~2 weeks beforehand:

these super thin men's joggers were my go-to dysphoria pants, to the point where I bought five pairs in different colors, but now they're so baggy on me that they have the opposite effect and make it look like I have wider hips than I do. so I retired them from my wardrobe...

...except not immediately because I had to wear compression garments 24/7 for the first three months post-op and these joggers were just loose enough to comfortably wear a medical girdle underneath them at all times, 110° degree temperatures be damned. (not that I was going out much for the first month since I was soooooooooooo fucking bruised and sore lol.) here's a few post-op pics in the same style pants:

(first pic is less than 24 hours post-op, about to go to my follow-up appointment, looking greasy as fuck because I wasn't allowed to shower yet; second pic two days post-op and also post-shower, thankfully; third pic is about a month post-op.)

so, like, CLEAR improvement already. I will not be posting pictures of my black-and-blue-and-swollen-all-over legs but considering how puffy I was from getting internally pummeled with a cannula it's wild that I still saw improvement literally as soon as I came home.

recovery was obviously not a blast in the moment but I got off easy, all things considered. I was supposed to get drains put in and was Not looking forward to that at all lol. the first thing I asked when I woke up after surgery was "how many drains?" because they weren't sure if I'd end up needing two or four, but it turned out the answer was zero. no drains!!!

I did have to lie with my feet elevated for the first two weeks straight, and had major bruising that receded over the first month (you could barely see my regular skin underneath all the mottled spots), but little to no nerve pain, no weird complications, and I was more or less back to normal after six weeks. also noelle took very very good care of me and was brave about injecting me with blood thinners so I wouldn't get clots and die :)

when I went into it I was fully expecting to get huge vertical scars up and down the sides of my legs (and had made peace with it!) but instead I wound up with four tiny incisions like this, each less than two inches long:

what's totally crazy is that the scars are basically Gone now. like even when I'm trying to find them I struggle to locate the ones in the front. I joked to noelle that if someone did an autopsy on me they might not figure out that I'd had cosmetic surgery, especially since the skin on my thighs is back to its normal color and texture. (in this scenario I like to imagine that it's dana scully giving me the autopsy and I'm in an x-files plot where instead of regular lipo I got alien lipo and mulder figures it out purely by accident.)

with lipo it can take up to a year to see the full results but I already feel so much fucking better in my body that seeing old pre-op pics throws me for a loop. and I can absolutely wear men's pants now—pants for short and stocky men, to be fair, but actual regular men's pants and not exclusively Pants For Men With Huge Butts And Legs. which is the only style I could even hope to fit in before. and even then it was a stretch.

big pic dump of shitty mirror selfies taken over the last few months:

:)

(also I really debated sharing this one but I already included it in the yelp review I left my surgeon so fuck it: here's a tasteful before-and-after in my undies where you can see my bare legs for easier comparison. left pic is one week pre-op, right pic is about five months post-op. including it as a link instead of embedding it in the post in case your boss happens to be reading over your shoulder at this very moment. also this is the one and only time you will ever see me stripped down on tumblr dot com so don't get used to it lol.)

I'm not sure you need people to announce that they're just here for fun? it's tumblr...surely that can be assumed?

i dunno sometimes it seems like when you say this stuff it's a bit of a straw man argument because I don't really see anyone on here taking this stuff that seriously. we are not larries! no one is claiming Paul's kids are fake or anything lmao. yes people like to look at the history but again it's tumblr, it's just for fun.

maybe there is a whole other delusional side to beatles tumblr that i am not seeing, but i think maybe if people are getting mad when you argue with their dumb little posts it's just cause they think that you, in fact, DO want to spoil the party!

I have been waiting for someone to make this joke ever since I got that url. Have had to make it myself often <3

1. "we are not larries" is an incredibly low bar.

2. the specific contents of theories isn't the only thing that makes them conspiratorial. it's about the way they're argued.

3. Actually, I am thinking of One Specific Event from about a year and a half ago that was treated as people "spoiling the party" when in fact it was an example of good faith engagement with a seriously worded discussion post.* Maybe you missed that, and it's not like it's a super common occurrence. But in hindsight, I don't find it surprising given the climate here.

*I can provide more details on this specific thing in DMs if someone is curious. I don't wanna hash it out on main, especially since I was only peripherally involved.

4. This isn't about whether tumblr is your space to have fandom fun – I do assume that. It's about whether someone is making arguments in jest or if they mean them seriously. Both of these things might be fun to someone (but maybe I could have worded that point better in the original tags).

5. No, no fake kids, and this fandom isn't plagued by a central figure who's to blame for all the "bad stuff". Plus, it's "decentralized", so no singular entity is controlling some super specific narrative. This definitely keeps the space in check. That's part of it though: it's all very sociological, which makes my issue difficult to address because most single posts aren't a problem in of themselves, but there's a tangible vibe to the whole thing. That's also why I want to tread lightly here; I know a lot of it is a joke, but it's hard to tell what isn't. Like, yeah, I've been passive-aggressive lately, but I've also been watching this for a long time. And I regularly see things I perceive as a strawman against my position as well as absolutist rhetoric, which reads just as much as picking a fight as any of my recent posts do. If you talk about there only being "one explanation" for something, what is that, other than putting forward your theory as true? Is it really Not Serious? Every time? Even when the post is presented in a serious way, with sources and evidence? People on this site talk about what they expect Mark Lewisohn to include in his Definitely Trying To Be Serious And Factful biography series. Those demands are never serious? And I don't want to just ruin people's fun for no reason! But I also have a hard time dismissing every single thing that Sounds Kind Of Serious as Probably A Joke (and I do do it, pretty regularly) And I semi-often see people doing things that set off my alarm bells, even when they are not proclaiming Stella McCartney to be a lifelong actress. (reminder that several people on here freaked about the For Paul tapes story being semi-debunked last November; like actively scorned people who were trying to figure out how that story came about and where it originated. That's not normal, sorry to say! And, funnily enough, about a year ago, there was a blog on here pushing a very very very esotheric version of McLennon [and even trying to monetize it] and while most people dismissed them for the kook they were, they splashed onto the tumblr scene in an identical way [saying something that amounted to: "how dare you imply this apocryphal Paul McCartney quote might be fake?"] –––– so my question is: is it not that serious? I Don't Know You Tell Me!)

6. This is @ me mostly, I guess. I just feel like this space has become more and more of a monoculture. Shipping is the default angle with which everything is approached. If John and Paul write songs that are maybe not about each other that's not often seen as worth diving into. (See: Beautiful Boy tinhatting). I actually want to try and change this; get more diverse content on this site, but I guess I assume it's not welcome, which is on me, really. I have slides explaining my specific reading of Double Fantasy (yes, seriously) and there isn't really much stopping me from posting them, outside the fact that most people on here seem to have a very different relationship to the songs from the album than I do, so I assume they won't care. But y'know, I'll try to just Make More Content and see what that does. (For the record I know that sounds whiny. And I do seriously want to do better on that front)

R.I.P. Big Dog

     I won't miss the big dog but I am sorry he died.

      Without naming him many of you will know who I'm speaking of. He and I had a few very pleasant moments like when we realized we both fell in love with Bjork on the same day (when The Sugarcubes hosted SNL on October 18th, 1988).  We shared some drinks, some laughs, a love of comic books and our politics were very close to being identical.      But the first time I met him I was 23 years old at a poetry reading and I accidentally bumped into a table loudly while someone was reading. The Big Dog gave me a look that said "Die, you piece of shit."      I immediately apologized and took responsibility as I sat down quietly.       Soon I began began reading my poems to audiences which resulted in him talking shit and saying "Comedy Is Easy" (of course it isn't as proven by the amount of serious actor, poets, writers vs comedians....we have a lot more people in the De Niro camp than we do in the Jack Black camp.) You can't just say "Chinchilla Hips" and be a funny guy. It takes a little more.      Then out of nowhere in 2003 I entered a championship for shits and giggles and to my suprise I won. I was the Albuquerque City Champ in poetry  that year with The Big Dog coming in 2nd which made him really mad. He told loads of people in our shared community that I only won cuz I was good looking (debatable) and that my poetry was cliched. I told him since I beat him his poems must be "Less Than Cliche" which really angered him. But I didn't give a shit. He started it and had picked on me the last 6 years for no reason and I wasn't having it.      At the risk of sounding cocky I kept winning. It was something like 3 city championships in a row plus 2 Haiku city championships. I can't rmember details but this was not the accomplishment it sounds like. It quickly stopped being fun as my competitors would not grow or challenge themselves creatively. It was like beating Pauly Shore in acting competitions. To his credit he admitted he found me frustrating because while he was far more recognized nationally he could rarely if ever beat me.      After 20 years he continued to fuck with me right here on FB (as recently as a few months ago calling my friends racist when none of them had even discussed race) and now that he died loads of people are remembering him fondly. Many of them are just doing it to be a part of something. This behavior grosses me out even though I am sort of doing it right now. But I don't want to be a part of that world anymore as proven by the fact I have not read a poem in public or attended a show since 2008 (even when offered money to do so).      Of course some of the love being spouted for The Big Dog is 100% genuine for some and I am glad that they had a healthy relationship with him. Sadly this was not my experience.      When we met he was a middle aged man who was picking on a young man. Plain & simple. 20 years later and I had become the middle aged man and he, an old man, continued to harass me on here (but not in DMs cuz he was a master at Virtue Signaling and wanted "to be seen being the ultimate ally")      That's what I hated about Slam Poetry. Even though I am a stone cold liberal and about as far left as a human can be, it was not about poetry at all. If it had been there would be a variety of stuff. Evil right wing poems would be welcomed (technically it would be possible for an asshole to be a good writer). So it was about agreeing which means it was a social circle, not an art community.      I've been happier since I went back to my first loves of comedy & art. But it always hurt that this guy who I went out of my way to be friends with for years wouldn't stop fucking with me.       That said, I never ever wanted him dead. And now he is. And it sucks. #BansheeMilkFACTS     

pluto taurus scorpio 2H 11H :D

Aw thanks for the ask Wolfie! 🤩❤️ It's another long one so I'll put it under a break :)

pluto ⇢ tell something supernatural that happened to you

Oh boy ~ well bearing in mind that I'm in a shared space and likely could have someone rolling their eyes at me for any of the stories I got, maybe I'll have you DM me and I'll share those there lol.  But basic gist: I've had enough experiences where I feel very secure in my belief of an afterlife.

taurus ⇢ what's your favorite food?

I don't know if I have a fave food per se, for multiple health reasons, but I can say I tend to lean towards bread and pasta options that are fairly plain when I do order things (I don't tend to be able to taste multiple ingredients in a dish - mostly in relation to chronic sinuses, so no sense in spending money on complex dishes when some noodles and cheese will do the trick lol).  I do joke that since I'm not too much into sugary stuff this body of mine is a pasta and bread body, not a sugar one lol.

scorpio ⇢ do you feel comfortable talking about taboo things?

I think it depends on what, and for what purpose?  Like I have worked in human services and done mediation work and am very open to discussions of trauma and the healing journey.  I've heard some heavy things, I've lived through heavy things, that society would consider "taboo" to discuss - only we can decide the boundaries around discussions of these things (like trauma is valid, *and* you cannot use it as a weapon to lash out at others), and depending on how detailed someone wants to get I might need to schedule that sort of heavy subject matter, but I'm definitly open to being a sounding board as someone is processing feelings and gently encouraging resources they might like to look into, or even virtually sitting in the discomfort with them for a moment because trauma likes to declare "you are alone in this" and I think in a moment where I'm able to say "I'm listening with an open mind, and open heart" that that can help combat that narrative.

Of course I'm only speaking for myself, and in general we should always do check ins first - even among friends - before we start, and even during the conversation, so if someone needs a break they can tap out and tap back in when ready. And also everyone has their own emotional boundaries and no one should feel forced to be more vulnerable with someone, or be held responsible for someone else's journey - or be guilted to holding space for someone. Just yeah, check in with someone first ;)

Since I'm in fandom for the fun, light stuff, I do have a fairly firm self policy on the kind of content I want to invest energy consuming - this is partially because I do a *lot* of emotional and mental labor with both my own healing, but also because I'm an advocate among my family's health issues (including my own), a legal co-guardian of an adult family member, special needs children, and volunteer where mediation and inter personal dynamics are fairly at the core of it - but anyway, it's a big reason why I don't engage with certain tags in fandom because the work it would require to consume would tap me out. And like I said, I'm here for some art therapy for processing and healing sure, but in general I use fandom as play therapy to lighten things up with the rl things I got going on.

However all that being said, I'm very open to someone sharing a hard time they're going through, because I know my boundaries and capacity for holding space for someone - and if I need a break, I'll gently point that out *and* plan for a time to come back to it.  If it becomes a subject matter that I'm unable to hold, or validate (like someone with toxic behavior who is trying to harass etc), then I'll place a boundary around that as well.  But all in all, I've heard plenty, been through plenty, and am good one on one talking about heavy things, especially under the context of processing to heal and growing on our journeys.

2H ⇢ do you have any object that you like a little too much? what is it and why?

I'm fairly decent about not placing too much importannce on materialistic items (probably because I grew up poor lol), however one object I've been wearing for years is my St. Dominic medal - I received it when I made my temporary promises as a Lay Dominican, and use it as my scapular essentially.  About a year later a local priest gave me a Miraculous Medal, that had been blessed by the Holy Father, so they both clang around my neck for some three years now lol.  I'm making my final promises next month, but I'm not sure if I'm adding anything else to the necklace!

11H ⇢ describe your friends in 3 words

Loving, playful, inspiring ❤️

27, 28, 34

-@outofangband

[for this game]

@outofangband thanks for the ask!

27. How do you feel about collaborations?

I love collaborations! The closest I've gotten to a formal collab is TRSB because I've gotten to work in great detail alongside some artists. I really enjoy when people want to chat about their vision, as I think you can tell by our million-word-long dm history. Once you get me going, I will imprint on you like a baby duck, good luck getting me to be quiet. The only thing that makes me nervous about collabs is the deadline/peer expectation type stuff because my executive function dribbles out my ears like engine oil most days. Ironically, external motivators like collaborations and exchange deadlines are the only thing that get me to actually finish my wips so. oopsie.

28. Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

this is in no particular order and as soon as I post this i'm gonna think to myself, damn I totally forgot X and Y and Z and -- anyway. Dialux for being so meticulous in character construction and breathing life into characters that tolkien gave less than a passing glance to, really changed me fundamentally in how I approach minor characters and group dynamics. Arofili for introducing me to trans tolkien fic and giving me the courage to write my own trans fic after years of nail-biting in other fandoms watching trans creators get ripped apart for any number of imagined offenses. findrahil on here (joanofarcstan on ao3) for heartbreak and tragedy, lush prose, and having character interactions down to a science.

34. What are your thoughts on non-con and dub-con?

teehee you know my thoughts on noncon/dubcon. to the rest of my readers: at some point i'll curse you with my wip folder.

(below a cut for general discussion of sexual violence in media)

Writing is all about finding ways to let readers know things about characters in a way that seems organic. Chiefly, I think noncon/dubcon is a scenario as a rhetorical device, like any other literary scenario, that a writer can use to explore explicit and implicit characterization. It's an excellent tool to explore grief, fear, indecision, loyalty, betrayal, anger, and guilt.

Different strokes for different folks. Not everyone is going to want to read the same thing or write the same thing. What I find cathartic or honest someone else might find repulsive or sensational, and neither of us are wrong. There was a period of time I couldn't touch the great gatsby or tess of the durbervilles because they were painful to read. That doesn't mean they are ugly sensationalist books that have nothing to say.

This is especially true when we think of survivors; many people can picture avoidant and withdrawn survivors, while scorning survivors who turn to hypersexuality or risky behavior as a means of regaining control over their life. I think it's fair to talk about how big producers write stories that aren't respectful or accurate, but it's really shitty to come onto a small platform where you can directly contact the author themself, to lambast their work as too graphic or ugly when the theme is a traumatic event that is astoundingly common in its incidence rate. Like please gain some perspective, folks. Lolita gets this treatment a lot, nabokovs' thesis hinging on humbert humbert being a charismatic manipulator who controls the postmortem narrative of dolores via his memoirs as the framework of the book.

This is not just true of how we debate portraying violence (sexual or otherwise) but also of a host of topics. What I want to read or write about the trans experience is not necessarily what others need to read or write.

I have a hard time feeling sorry for people who complain about noncon or dubcon existing in media that they are going out of their way to look for and interact with instead of self-regulating. I think it can be a self-harm method to look for things one finds unpleasant; when people aren't doing it to self-harm, they're doing it because they're immature. I'm not saying it's not occasionally fun to hate-read/hate-watch something but when it's festering in your head? Put it down and forget about it. There is literally nothing you can do to get people to stop writing something you find objectionable that would not also be a hideous thing to do to someone (like harassment, doxxing, suicide bait etc).

I think people have a hard time wrapping their head around that, when the opposite truth is pretty self evident: that writers who write bigoted things should have to take responsibility for propagating bigotry, and that people who do bigoted things should be on the hook for their own actions. I find there's a lot of muddy water there already too, because I've definitely seen trans people be attacked for writing about their own lives in a way that (usually cis people, but sometimes trans people) don't want to hear about - I'm thinking about Leslie Feinberg the ze/hir transmasculine lesbian but also small tumblr bloggers too. Like "you shouldn't be writing that!!!" except it's like, someone talking about not wanting bottom surgery or having abnormal pronouns; I think the messiest portions of communities, the portions that defy easy comprehension, are the first to be attacked in service of making the community easy to understand or sympathize with. And I think this sort of observation applies to discussing literary content too, that a certain level of scrutiny is going to cause more harm than good, especially to people who are most vulnerable to harm.

My final thought on the matter is that people are really really afraid of being infected with brainworms. I don't know how much of it is the culturally christian "god is watching and he's planning how to best boil you in oil for eternity" and how much is the rampant scrupulosity that seems to pop up in leftist circles. People are terrified of a bad thought getting into their heads and turning them into someone who does bad things. I'm worried about it too!!! In reality, people don't get suckered into doing bad things in a vacuum. Having a strong analytical foundation and media literacy is an excellent way to help people understand the context and themes in a piece, figure out what the literary purpose is, and decide where that behavior fits in their real world ethical map.

Reading Lolita is not going to teach people it's okay to abuse children. Reading Lolita and trying to pick out where humbert humbert's narrative is designed to seem sympathetic, why that is, what he's hiding under his narrative, and how this connects to charismatic abusers getting away with abuse might help people guard against abuse in real life. A major focus in my public health degree was interpersonal, family, and community violence, and the unifying thread in all of this was that people don't understand what causes abuse, what abuse looks like, how to talk about and teach about abuse, or what evidence based things we can do to prevent it. As a society we are allergic to talking about it, and utterly refuse to investigate why we think abusers look like nefarious ugly socially inept monsters while simultaneously reinforcing systems of power that entrench and occult abuse allowing normal ordinary-looking people to commit abuse. No one wants to admit that anyone is capable of abuse. This does not mean that abusive behavior is ready to leap out of every person (a la brain worms theory suggests). It just means that denying a problem exists, refusing to find evidence based solutions, and decrying any attempt to talk about it, is the least sensible thing to do. Knowing how to spot an abuser, or how to spot abusers and manipulation in literature, does not turn people into abusers. I really do not think it is a productive use of time to interrogate the erotic and taboo things people write about or read about, or the things that confuse, frighten, or arouse you yourself. But maybe I'm just more concerned with the state of the real world than niche AO3 dubcon.

(grumpy tone not directed at you, or any of my followers)