do not try and bend the spoon

writer. so old. BluejayBoi on AO3. 🏳️‍⚧️ he/him

[courtmartialme]

happy pride month!! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️✨ here's the cover for the transmasc riza zine :) will be released later this month! (hopefully…!)

this zine is being made to support my journey towards getting my top surgery! please consider supporting my fundraiser on ko-fi too ^__^

[courtmartialme]

Have you ever felt grateful for how the headcanon of Riza Hawkeye as a trans man seems to be popular across the Fullmetal Alchemist fandom? If so, did you know most of the art you've seen for it is made by one single guy? A guy who really wants to get his top surgery done and could use your help with that? ;)

I'm Dimitri, a 23 year old trans man from São Paulo, Brazil. I've been living alone with my cat since late 2023, and currently I have a job that keeps me away from home 12 hours a day on top of sometimes doing commissions to supplement my income.

I've been drawing fanart for FMA, more specifically for Riza and Royai, for 8 years! On January 29, 2022, I posted a couple of doodles of a very self indulgent scenario of Riza as a trans man on twitter, and to my surprise it got a ton of attention(and some hate too lol). But it made me happy that a self indulgent AU I made to project my own experiences and wishes as a trans man onto my favorite character was so well received :)

This AU was born out of the wish to project onto my favorite character the life I wanted to live. Back then I felt very lost in life, being very dysphoric but with no prospect of getting to start HRT, much less being able to look into top surgery, projecting into Riza the life I wanted for myself(working towards being comfortable in your skin while being loved and supported through it by the people you care about) helped me a lot through it. So as you can imagine, it's a headcanon really personal to me that I hold dear to my heart. Which makes it really funny to me that the more I drew about it, the more popular it got. To the point of there being people who think it's simply a fandom-wide popular headcanon for Riza, not realizing that most, if not all, art for it is born from this one guy's unhinged dedication(me!!!)

Fast forward to 2026. I've been on HRT for 8 months after knowing I'm trans for about 8 years!!! Finally being able to start my transition after so long has made me very eager to start living my life as my authentic self, so I quickly started looking into getting top surgery, something that at this point you could say it’s my dream, as it’s a procedure that would give me back my life as someone whose dysphoria can be paralyzing at times. But the thing is, top surgery is expensive.

To give you some perspective: It's possible to get top surgery for free in Brazil through the government's trans healthcare program. But on top of there being a waitlist of around 2 years, you can't choose the professional who is performing your surgery(among some other bureaucracies).

This is going to be a life-changing surgery for me that is going to give me my life back, so I don't want to wait even more and feel uncertain about the results. Which is why I'm looking into paying for my surgery out-of-pocket. After researching for a while, I've decided on my surgeon. A renowned surgeon in the field who has performed this same surgery countless times, and has even taught surgeons who now perform it for the government's program how to do it in the first place! Which makes me feel confident about his skill and care.

So then I scheduled a consultation with him on April 22, 2026. After a few questions about my journey and clarifications about the surgery, the doctor gave me a price estimate for the procedure.

27(twenty-seven) thousand reais(approximately). This is roughly 20 months of minimum wage here in Brazil. (with roughly 4.000 reais needing to be paid beforehand to schedule a date for the surgery)😭

With all that being said!!!!!! Here are the conclusions:

27.000 reais is a looooot of money for someone who is paid in reais. But the conversion of BRL to USD, based on today's conversion rate, makes it around 5.500 USD— Not so bad if you get paid in dollars, right? It's like a real life money hack ... wowza...

So I'd really appreciate the help of anyone who CAN and WANTS to help me over on Ko-fi. Any amount will help me A LOT, even if to take off the weight from other life expenses so I can focus on commissions! And as I have talked about before, I'm also offering a digital PDF Transmasc Riza zine! With all of the transmasc Riza art I've posted so far + unpublished/revamped illustrations and sketches + guest art/writing from my friends! With both SFW and NSFW sides ;) I plan to have it out by the end of May/beginning of June! I hope you look forward to it!!

PLUS, it's not much, but if you ever thought "damn, I wish this idiot would draw more of this thing he has already drawn or has talked about drawing before", on my ko-fi you can leave a request regarding that! (Do keep in mind it's a tip jar for supporting what I already do, so it's not guaranteed I'll get to draw it at all)

I sincerely thank you for reading until here! Every donation, commission request, purchase of the zine, and reblog would mean the absolute world to me! Thank you so much for all the love and support across all these years, and for staying around to be part of this very exciting stage of my life!

Here's my KO-FI!

PIX(for fellow brazilians): 8c988f0c-81cc-464d-bc4e-39a86cb9c7fb

my cat, sagwa, with my riza shrine + yours truly :) i can't take good selfies even if my life depended on it

[genderkoolaid]

in order to not succumb to sex negative conservatism you have to accept that people will get off to things that are upsetting to you. and you cannot assume anything about what they have or have not experienced, what they do or do not believe, and how they act based solely on what gets them off. even if it's extremely confusing and disturbing to you. there are people who have only ever had heterosexual vanilla sex in missionary with the lights off, who actively contribute to more real world harm than your average fetish artist. kink is not a reliable source of information on someone's moral standing. it just feels good to think that way.

[lavenderprose]

I love how some fics are called shit like "They Only Shoot The Birds Who Cannot Sing" and it's like the most insane porn you're ever read and then some fics are called Spit On Me and it's 18,000 words of the most achingly id-scratching prose you've ever read and they're both. They're both so fucking good. thank God for fanfiction.

[oxfrnk]

don’t!!! fake!!!! your!!!! interests!!!! to!!!! make!!!! someone!!!! like!!!!! you!!!!

[the-last-d-boy]

don’t!!! bury!!!! your!!!! interests!!! to!!!!! make!!!! someone!!!! like!!!!! you!!!!

[wind-at-your-back]

don’t!!! go!!! wasting!!! your!!! emotion!!! lay!!! all!!! your!!! love!!! on!!! me!!!

[smokingrozanov]

Take my hand. You will not miss twitter if you delete your account. You will not miss out on cultural shifts or news or memes or anything like that because the internet is all one big Sharefest anyway. If something truly funny or interesting or alarming happens on that app it will be screenshotted and shared somewhere else. I understand that it used to be fun. But now it’s an app owned by a scumbag built on an algorithm intentionally made to get you upset because rage gets clicks & replies. I’m not saying this judgmentally I’m saying it as someone who had a final straw two years ago & feels infinitely better in online spaces now without twitter in my life.

[what-even-is-thiss]

The thing about being trans is that once you come to terms with it it’s really just whatever but The Cis People insist upon being weird about it

[what-even-is-thiss]

Once you’ve been out of the closet for a while and are surrounded by people who are at the very least neutral and respectful about the trans thing it just becomes a whatever part of your life and all these people claiming that you’re ruining society and passing laws against you kinda feels like a swat team storming into your house while you’re just eating spaghetti.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Bro why are you banning me from using the bathroom I’m literally just eating spaghetti

[ironedorchid]

Kelly Link, 21st April 2026

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

“this fic portrays problematic ship” then don’t read it

“this fic romanticizes bad things” then don’t read it

“this fic makes me uncomfortable and angry” then don’t read it

“this fic about my favorite fictional character goes against everything the character believes in in canon” then don’t read it

all of the problems you have with somebody else’s fanfic can be very easily solved by the act of Not Reading It

scroll past a fic if it’s something you don’t like, filter out tags about things you don’t want to see

no one forces you to read a fic that upsets you. also you can stop reading any fic at any time you want.

harassing real people over fiction will not make you morally superior. it just makes you a bully

[rabbitheatedgrrrl]

Not wanting to have sex is NOT a problem. It doesn’t matter if you are asexual or allo, there is nothing wrong with not wanting sex. It’s just an activity. That’d be like saying that if you don’t like soccer, you need to go to soccer therapy to figure out why you dislike it and figure out how to like it because it’s for your own good. See how ridiculous that sounds? IT IS OK TO NOT WANT TO HAVE SEX AND IT IS NOT SOMETHING THAT NEEDS TO BE FIXED!!!!!!

[divorcedzukka]

characters whose philosophy is “if i cannot be wanted, i will be needed and if i cannot be needed, let me be used until there’s nothing left of me.” thank you for everyone’s attention. falls off stage and dies

[losingmymindtonight]

logical brain: it’s just fanfiction… you’re writing this for fun… it’s okay if it’s not perfect as long as you enjoyed creating it

monkey brain: everything I write must be groundbreaking

[galileosyeast]

headache heartache

•

sketch requests here :)

[shithowdy]

hey. if someone tries to smear you on the internet for something asinine, what you need to do is block every single person engaging with the post and remind yourself that absolutely under no circumstances are you obligated to draft a PR response defending some out-of-context screenshot or kink fanfiction or thing you said when you were 15 or whatever put your blood in the water. you are not a public figure or a brand. you do not have to respond to something if you know in your heart it is bullshit.

[one-step-at-a-time25]

I like that most my wlw ships are literally just a pure of heart dumb of ass who is fully convinced that they should one sidedly love the other one and the other is going through the horrors of being known

[writingdose]

this used to be a common knowledge

via AO3Tikli 2022

[kitkatpancakestack]

WE HAVE GOT TO START LOVING THE PROCESS MORE THAN THE PRODUCT AGAIN