Hello my lovely Librarians! I realize it got pretty quiet for no reason around here and I’ve honestly been trying to figure out how to write this update, because it’s a pretty heavy life update. But, I want to be transparent with all of you, because getting to write my weird fiction around here and hang out with all of you is deeply meaningful to me. This community, the one here at the Unrequited Library, and the broader kink community, is near and dear to my heart.
If you’re not into the heavy life updates, also feel free to skip this one. We’re going to hit some CW content in it, including death, infertility, politics, transgender issues… the works, really.
I got very excited for Mayternity this year and laid out an exciting plan of events, including stories, streams, and a World of Horror mod. However, as I’m sure folks noticed, about 2 weeks into the schedule I got off-track. 3 weeks into the schedule, and I was very far behind.
What I wasn’t saying out loud was that a close family friend had very unexpectedly passed away and my uncle was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in the same week. I had also, at the literal same time, got a new job to replace the one I had lost at Threshold Games.
The new job was very exciting and needed; my partner and I wanted to move into our own place and attempt to set down roots again. We have been staying with friends for the last year and while we are very, very, very, very thankful for their help, we also did not wish to continue to stick ourselves in their home.
A very large amount had suddenly shifted in my life, both bad and good, but all of it very much sucked my attention away from here and anything I was doing creatively. I tried to look up and be hopeful while all of this was going on, but I’ll be honest, the sudden whiplash of change was hard to go through. There were days where I felt like I was just trodding slowly through mud. Missing story deadlines just made me feel worse.
For many reasons, the last year has been very hard for me to go through. I keep counting my blessings that I am supported by a wonderful partner and caring, patient friends, because I do not think I could do any of what I do without them in my life.
Leaving Texas, as I’ve said before, was a very important thing for me and my partner to do. As the Governor and Congress of that state has continued to make it a priority to pass laws against people like me, things slowly became more dangerous. Only a few months before we moved, a transgender woman was assaulted at the Target where my partner and I bought our groceries. That’s just a taste of what things were getting like.
Leaving the state, however, came with some pretty severe stipulations which I don’t think I’ve explained out loud before. While my partner and I were very successful in saving money and you Librarians were very kind in helping us out via DeviantArt and Twitch, the other half of the moving funds were what little savings I had left after COVID. We bought as big of a shipping container as we could, we loaded it up with what we could fit, and we left 75% of our stuff behind. No way we could take everything.
We fled. And while we were on the road up from the south, we noticed we were not the only cars driving northward with LGBTQIA+ or transgender stickers and a trunk full of stuff. Apparently we weren’t the only ones with this idea. Thinking of that is still heartbreaking to me.
Losing the rest of my savings meant we’ve been starting from scratch since last year. Again, I cannot thank my friends enough for letting us stay with them during this time; without their assistance, my partner and I could not have afforded our own place. Losing my job was, as you could guess, a significant blow. We were already running on an empty tank, and losing our source of stability was tough. My partner is disabled and can’t work, so everything rides on me maintaining my job in an industry that’s notoriously unstable.
Grief is wicked, and heavy
Losing my savings also meant something else that I’ve been quiet about until right now: I don’t know if I can have the chance to start my own family anymore. It may now be financially impossible.
For a long time, I tried to keep an open mind about starting a family. I wanted to see how I felt, and if I could push myself up to the task. I didn’t want to say no to having kids, but I also didn’t want to say yes. I wanted to make sure I could provide a great life for a kid if I had one, after all. I wanted to be able to set down roots, save up funds for adoption, find a nice community, get a house… you know, basic life goals.
When we fled from Texas, all of that went out the door. None of those things are possible in a community that is actively antagonistic against myself and my partner. I would never, ever want a child of mine to be a target for hate.
I have been grieving the potential loss of my dreams. I have to face the fact that I’m older, my time is starting to get shorter to do things like this, and I don’t know if I have the runway left. I want to try and I will try, but I know that it will be nothing short of an uphill battle. It may not end with the ending I desire. I may never be an actual mom… I’ll just play one on the internet.
All of this together with the recent death and caretaking has made writing pregnancy/belly content extremely hard. It’s something I normally love to write and create, but it just feels like all of my energy has been stolen. That I’m writing a dream I’ll never be able to have. There’s a name for all this, of course: Infertility grief.
I can definitely confirm it sucks. Especially when one of your pieces of happiness is being a broodmother of a kitsune. I know my eagerness to do this stuff will return, but it’s going to take some time.
I can’t end this update on gloom though. While this year and particularly May and June were hard, July has been getting a little easier. My partner and I recently moved into our own place - a small townhouse in Connecticut - and we picked up our dog from her foster parents. (More thanks to our friends who watched our dog for the last year when we couldn’t have her!) We’re starting to set down our roots again.
I’m no longer living with many other roommates too, which means I have privacy again. I haven’t been doing as many photos or visual content for the last year because I wanted to respect the other people around me, but having our own place means I have more freedom to create kink.
I’ve also been working closely with a specifically trained therapist over the past few months too, and am going to continue doing that. She’s been helping me work through all of this, as hard as it has been, and I’m thankful I have access to great healthcare up here in Connecticut. It’s much, much better than what I was finding in Texas. Having that level of support in this period of time is so very, very important.
Finally… the big update that my partner is really excited about… I was approved to get breast augmentation this year and my insurance covers it. 😈 IT IS TIME!!!!! I’ll definitely have more updates to share on that in the future, and I’m gonna talk about how the process works, but I am so very excited!
Annnndddd double finally… because I somehow went this entire update without mentioning SizeCon… the SizeCon staff’s still been doing things in the background. A TON of things. COMPLICATED THINGS, even. I didn’t exactly STOP working on any of that stuff during all of this, and they’ve definitely been busting their butts.
Yes, there will be an announcement coming from SizeCon soon. Yes, you should be excited. It’s quite… big? Big’s a good way to put it.
So what about Mayternity and Unrequited Library Season 2? What about my subscription?
With all of that now said, let’s get down to the important stuff: the content. What am I gonna do about the content?
While we’re off schedule, half of Season 2 is written and the World of Horror mod is mostly done, it just needs two final art adjustments and some additional QA time that I haven’t gotten to do yet. There’s no way I’m going to leave this stuff on the floor.
But, here’s the thing, I can’t guarantee a good publishing schedule for a subscription going forward, at least for a bit. If that changes how you want to support the Library, I completely understand and I encourage you to change your subscription plan.
I’m going to slowly wheel out the Mayternity and Season 2 content as I can, under our normal Library Rules: Subscribers will have first access to the story for two weeks. After that, it goes into the public folder and on Swell Tales.
When the Season wraps up, the stories will be available for a period of time to everyone before being thrown back into the Restricted Section and given to subscribers.
Again, thank you for all of your patience during the last few months, and I apologize for the silence. I’m going to continue to work on myself and better myself, so you can have the best possible broodmother back in the Library, ready to go on an adventure at the drop of a switch. <3
