Mostly just transferring my old side blog to its own separate account. Old mutuals, please make sure to hit me up so I can follow you back (again)!
I'm Ezra, an artist, writer, worldbuilder, gamer, and probably more besides! I'm trans/nonbinary, they/them, and aro/ace, with strong lean on the aro. My identities often influence my works, so don't be surprised.
Links:
Ko-fi: donate and/or become a monthly member for special posts
Bsky: hope to post more here soon!
Twitch: I stream every other Tuesday - mostly games but sometimes also art
YouTube: stream highlights and other projects (though video editing is something i'm still inexperienced with...)
Discord server: join the chaos crew! ko-fi members get special roles
(stream updates can be found on bsky and discord)
I love anything to do with fantasy, and do enjoy sci-fi as well (though I have a weird phobia about open space)! Found family, blood family, and friendships will always get me, as well as more complicated/blurred lines relationships, and non-romantic, non-platonic attraction between characters. I also love time travel and transmigration/reincarnation/isekai (within certain contexts).
More more more aromantic stories! Send them to me right away! Moreso if the protagonist/antagonist (or both) are aromantic, or if it's a story specifically about being aromantic in some way.
With worldbuilding, I adore non-European settings and would love to hear about yours. I also love conlangs and am a bit of a linguistic nerd. Cultures are always fun as well. I also enjoy stories or meta that explore non-human reproductive types for fantasy/sci-fi species!
I'm not much of a fan of romance, and especially slow-burn romance. I'll endure it if I really enjoy the rest of the story, but it just undercuts the experience for me. I'm otherwise fairly flexible, honestly.
My current 'main' projects are under the cut. There are SPOILERS!!
UNTO SUMMER KINGS (Book I of The Round Table)
wip intro
type: novel
status: on hold
inspiration: Arthurian legends
genre: grimdark (ish?) fantasy
world: [unnamed fantasy world]
tags: wip: unto summer kings, wip: usk, wip: round table series, wip: trt
A single night sweeps Arthur, his sister Morgana, and their friends into the wind like so many dandelion seeds. Ash and blood choke the rivers of their home, and they flee towards the kingdom to the north, seeking sanctuary and vengeance. Guided by friend and foe alike, they each learn and grow, catapulted into situations far above their stations.
worldbuilding: extremely WIP. takes place on a Fantasy Britain TM that's shaped like antarctica sans ice
meta notes: originally this was going to be a historical fiction/fantasy (as much as Arthurian legend counts as historical), but there were so many 'inaccuracies' that I wanted to include that I decided I might as well make its own fantasy world for it.
sequel titles (because i cant help myself, apparently): By Dawning Glory (II), Within Sundered Heart (III), Through Haunted Crowns (IV)
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WOLF IN SHEPHERD'S CLOTHING
intro post
type: webcomic/graphic novel
status: thumbnailing and character design
inspiration: Ancient Mesopotamia
genre: fantasy
world: urathla - #urathla, #ometeys, #avajra
urathla is the world, ometeys is the region, avajra is the conlang
tags: #wolf in shepherd's clothing, #wisc
Lahar is a shepherd who lives in the foothills of the northern Vhysurra valley, content to help raise their half-brother and tend to their flock. But with their memory loss, it's hard to say if they've seen anything that's been causing the disappearing livestock of late. And unfortunately for them, they're the harbinger of a brand new magic, and a brand new curse.
worldbuilding: plot-related 80% finished.
meta notes: what if the first werewolf was a shepherd...? and what if it was inspired by the history and culture (ish) of ancient mesopotamia? of course, not everything from this is inspired by that, but it definitely set up a good basis. like USK's britain analogue, i wanted this to take place in real life mesopotamia at first, but i realized i wouldn't be able to make it 'accurate' enough to my tastes. so, they got put together! - hopefully i will start posting more on ko-fi (and maybe here too!) soon.
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THE VESPERTINE
wip intro
type: novel
status: on hold
genre: medieval (?) fantasy
world: moia - #moia
tags: #wip: the vespertine
Aselhi is one orphan among many on the streets of Kestramore, eking out a living as a servant in a minor household. Unlike other orphans, they’re one of the vespertine, an alien people who ate through the cosmic Weft separating Moia from the other realms and setting the Causeways alight.
worldbuilding: extremely WIP.
meta notes: plays with gender even more than my other fics. features a fantastical species with non-human sex characteristics, among other things.
i simply don't think nonbinary people should have to see having our gender/s respected and acknowledged as a luxury. i think it's frankly sickening that that's the state of things tbh.
sorry i just think that the fact that popular binary jokes are stuff like "god isn't it so much better to exist as my gender, i didn't even realize how incredibly depressed i was until i transitioned, my life is so much more rich and colorful now that im out and transitioning :)" and popular nonbinary jokes are stuff like "i think i might be nonbinary but that doesn't matter because i have real adult concerns and no one would respect it anyways lol" and that's. normal and funny and cool. yeah. clenches teeth so hard they turn to dust
happy nonbinary people's day. treat every nonbinary person you meet with as much compassion and respect as you possibly can or ill grind YOUR teeth to dust.
once tried to share a poem with my uncle about how awful it feels to be reduced to binary ideas of gender as a nonbinary trans dude who doesn't pass. hes a very supportive cis gay man who'd never intentionally disrespect my identity and even he kind of laughed at me when i shared it thinking it was like. supposed to be lighthearted or a joke in a way? even from one of the most compassionate people i know i feel like my identity and a massive chunk of my dysphoria comes off as a funny concept/nonserious. idk
like the betrayal’s always going to be worse if they cared about you and it didn’t matter. someone discards you because they didn’t give a shit, then you can be angry about that, you can feel vindicated in that, you can get over it. but if they can look you in the eyes and say “I love you. I would make the same choice again.” You will never sleep peacefully again, is all.
“I thought they cared about me, but they were lying this whole time.” <- tired. boring. removes all the nuance of this relationship to make it easier to move on from.
“I thought they cared about me, and I was right, and every minute they were there for me, every time they said they were proud, every laugh we shared leaning against each other bruised and breathless, all of it was real. and they still left me behind. They could put their love aside. I couldn’t.” <- insane. will never leave you alone. reminds you that even the worst people are still people and can still care about even the ones they hurt the most and that undoes neither the harm nor the love.
There's a thing in Classics studies where you'll read surviving descriptions of Ancient Greek automata which attribute all manner of near-lifelike behaviour to them – then you look at the reconstructed plans for the automaton in question, and it's a device with roughly the sophistication of a wind-up mouse.
The broad consensus seems to be that the authors of such descriptions are exaggerating for clout. For my part, I look at all the people in the year 2026 who've managed to genuinely convince themselves that LLMs are not only sapient, but smarter than they are, and I think: hmm.
No offense, but the group with some of the most unexamined internalized privilege are right-handed people.
A right-handed co-worker told me once that I put the papers in the plastic sleeve upside-down. I joked that from my perspective, she's the one putting them upside-down and she just didn't get it and started arguing with me.
I had to physically demonstrate to her that the papers are right-side up when you hold the sleeve so that the opening is on the left.
wow its really interesting how you can look up literally any condition and it'll say that one of the things you should do to treat it is lose weight. like oh really? always? for every single disorder? that's really interesting, such an interesting coincidence! every condition in the world is caused by being fat? you're sure?
And then you look into the research and find out that fatness is actually just a symptom of the health condition, so weight loss has done jackshit to improve the condition from the beginning.
You learn that fatness is "correlated" with the condition but has no proof of being the cause, like how being poor is "correlated" with ill health because of oppression and lack of healthcare. The number on your bank account doesnt actually cause the ill health, it's the oppression and how society treats poor people that is the cause.
You do even more research and learn that turning a fat person into a thin person is as scientifically possible as climbing mount everest without dying, without a sherpa, and without thousands of dollars. And that constant yo-yo dieting and abusing your body into temporary thinness damages your health. Chasing thinness for 80 years is causing the ill health itself.
You learn how fat people endure a wage gap, starvation, medical abuse and medical neglect that leads to death, are refused access to anorexia recovery resources. You realize how fatphobia intersects with all other forms of oppression and that numerous oppressed groups have high numbers of fat people. You learn how fat people's healthy digestive organs are mutilated by doctors to try to force thinness and only result in vitamin deficiencies, alcoholism, suicide, and other unhealthy shit. You read about the fat people whose deaths are blamed on fatness but actually died by police brutality, by a nurse killing them during Hurricane Katrina to not have to deal with the fat patient during evacuations, by a doctor refusing basic tests and telling the fat person to just lose weight until finally a different doctor five years later does that basic test and has to tell the fat person they had cancer all this time and now only have a week left to live. And yes, all of these examples have happened, are documented, and are just a fraction of the deaths caused by fatphobia.
You keep searching and look at study after study that shows the extreme biases that doctors have against fat patients, biases that affect the healthcare they provide the fat person. You see how sports equipment and exercise clothes are intentionally only made for thin bodies. You learn that fat people are ostracized from sports as early as childhood no matter the fat person's skill level.
You keep digging. You find how fatness is extremely tied to genetics. You read about how the sciences actively refuse to study fat bodies even when fat bodies are donated to science. You look at vaccine trials and realize that not a single fat person was included. You google Plan B and learn that the drug doesnt work well for most fat people because only thin people get considered when making drugs safe for society.
After a while, you go directly to the source and look at weight science research. You realize that almost every single study begins with the conclusion that fatness must be "bad" and "unhealthy," which severely affects the validity and credibility of the study, as well as affecting the results. You find out how every weight loss "success" study is extremely flawed, paid for by weight loss corporations, and intentionally ended after a short amount of time and with a miniscule number of participants because that's the only way to make the study a "success." You find tons of studies that actually show how impossible longterm weight loss is, how there's an "ob*sity paradox" where fat people can actually have better health and longer lifespans than thin people, how dieting is severely damaging to the human body. And yet every study still ends with reassurance that this won't stop weight loss attempts. We just need to find successful ways to lose weight. Surely that's possible. Surely that's helpful. Surely thinness must always be healthy and fatness unhealthy. Both fat and thin people get this health condition that we said is caused by fatness? Doesn't matter, fatness is still the cause!
Okay but Mark Watney who survives for a year and a half on Mars completely alone and gets to come home because the entire world chose to put everything aside to save him watching the Hail Mary video logs when they come back to Earth and watching the world do nothing?
Mark Watney watching Ryland Grace have to grapple with the fact that he will die and there is no amount of quick thinking or human help that can save him?
Mark Watney finding out Grace didn't volunteer to go to space and was instead sent as a sacrifice so the rest of them could live and getting fucking pissed on his behalf?
Mark Watney who knows what it is to starve on a foreign planet doing the math about Grace's remaining food supply when he decides to go back to save Rocky?
Mark Watney who realistically knows that there is nothing that can be done but who keeps watching the information come out about a middle school teacher who was probably going to die alone in space and not being able to stop thinking about it?
Mark Watney who had to be asked to stop proposing rescue missions because even if they could get funded, there was very little hope that Grace would still be alive even if they got to him?
Mark Watney with survivors guilt for a mission that he wasn't even on?
Mark Watney asking why me but not him?
I know they're not in the same universe and I know the timelines don't line up but just go with me here.
yeah yeah rainbow capitalism is bad and whatever but like. when I was a child, being pro gay was not the popular or lucrative choice. I'm happy that times have changed.
I miss rainbow capitalism. I do. I miss when it felt like public opinion was still pro gay. I understand it was always an empty gesture, but it mattered in a sense of knowing how socially acceptable being queer is. If that makes sense.
not now sweetie, mommy is watching how the massive girlbossification of female characters has led to the belief that weak and vulnerable female characters are badly written characters because apparently every woman needs to be outspoken and witty and snarky and brave in order to be considered “complex” and have any value in a piece of media!!
I'm looking through powerpoint templates for a class presentation and was absolutely blown away by this one. I don't care what the topic is supposed to be, all of my future powerpoints have to have the Wizard
Long before colonialism, when gender was policed and queerness was punished, Trans+ communities in the Philippines were sacred
Long before gender was policed and queerness was punished, they were sacred.
In the Philippines, trans and gender-diverse people once stood at the centre of spiritual life. Precolonial Filipino societies recognised figures known as babaylan, ritual leaders primarily in the Visayan region who served as healers, spirit mediums, historians, and political authorities.
Many babaylan were women, while others were asogor bayog, who were described by Western accounts as effeminate men or transgender individuals. Their gender variance was not only accepted but revered. Their authority did not exist despite their gender expression – it existed because of it.
This pride month, if you have free time and like to draw, maybe consider (not forced) contributing to the intersex visual guide that will be getting officially published on October 16th (intersex awareness day!)
Even just a single drawing would do wonders for this project! There are dozens of prompts still open!
More details can be found here [link]! Traditional artists are accepted too! And you don't need to be intersex yourself to contribute!
At 1 PM on a Friday I get an email from my boss. I'm busy as hell so I don't check it immediately. Then I get a phone call from my boss, which has almost never happened before. I'm a white collar worker, a historian. There's never a 'historical emergency' requiring a phone call to kick me in the ass and get to work.
The request is so urgent my boss needs it by the end of the work week. Which, y'know, is 5 PM on a Friday. So I have four hours to do it.
It's a forwarded request. Somebody contacted a member of the donation team asking for help, "I need a map from the Vietnam War to use for a presentation." It's somebody she's trying to coax into giving a five figure donation to the museum.
The request was asked to the donation team member, who then emailed my boss, who then emailed and called me urgently.
This map required:
North and South Vietnam in it
All four areas that South Vietnam was divided into for military purposes ('Corps') clearly delineated
Four cities, all of them horrifically misspelled, and only identifiable because I know what battle the requester is asking about (it’s in III Corps on the border with Cambodia) (the requester danced around the battle but I’m knowledgeable enough to identify it)
Has Laos and Cambodia in it
Has the Ho Chi Minh Trail in it
So. I was mad about the 'you have literally four hours to find a map with a lot of requirements.'
I was then mad at myself about finding a copyright free map from Texas Tech University within half an hour, proving her right for asking me to do it.
Then, after I found a map that perfectly met the requirements, I was equally amazed, baffled, and horrified when I read further into the forwarded email chain.
The donation team team member they were speaking to used AI to generate a map.
The above put half of North Vietnam in South Vietnam, made the Ho Chi Minh Trail a country, made 60% of Cambodia part of South Vietnam, put the DMZ extremely high up in North Vietnam, completely disconnected the southern tip of Vietnam, misplaced all of the Corps zones, etc etc
At the very last second the donation team member had a moment of divine clarity, remembering there's three historians on payroll to ask for this kind of thing from. So she contacted my boss while saying, "I had fun with this, but I decided I should check for accuracy before I send it to the donor! I need a fact check by the end of the day, then I send it"
My boss, while not the most knowledgeable on the Vietnam War, does know her geography. She took one look, and knew it was so off she called me to tell me how urgent it is that I look at the email and respond
good fucking god, jesus tap dancing goddamn christ, I'm glad I was asked to look at it and then find a real map
My fear has never been that AI would replace human intelligence. My fear has been that the people who Know Things and the people who Make The Decisions are almost never the same people.
We’re throwing real intelligence out on the street to starve while worshipping the shambling Frankenstein-ed corpse of knowledge puppeteered by those who see us as disposable assets.
