Oct 17, 2023
Jake laying in the softest bed
Inktober day 16
Maybe I should post my other inktober drawings here too
seen from Malaysia
seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from Chile
seen from United States
seen from Chile
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from Malaysia
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from Switzerland
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Algeria
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
Jake laying in the softest bed
Inktober day 16
Maybe I should post my other inktober drawings here too
Hello from out of the blue! I came to a realization. I love your writing and I adore your posts, but I know little to nothing about you. Is there anything that you'd be willing to share about yourself? Thanks!
That’s okay! Most people know little to nothing about me. I am not much of a sharer unless people specifically express an interest. ( b ._.)b
For anyone else who’s interested, here’s a few fun facts! Also, I tried several times to put a Read More in this, but it hasn’t worked for some reason, so I’M REALLY REALLY SORRY because this is a long post and you’re going to be scrolling for a hot minute if you’re not interested in it, and I could easily understand it if you aren’t. Again, very sorry. I tried.
My name is Tanner! I’m a 33 year old transman who is very English and very, very gay. I’m also disabled, owing to a clusterfuck of mental health issues that I am slowly working on dismantling. I’m working very hard on getting better, and although my recovery has been far from linear, it is happening. Slowly.
I like stories! I like to make them and I like to absorb them. Because I like stories so much, however, I am very fussy about them, both about the ones that I make and the ones that I consume. I’m like that critic from Ratatouille, except with stories, pretty much.
Him. That guy. Except with stories. Also except that I’m fat. Because I’m considerably less discerning with food than I am with stories. I will eat trash if you let me, seriously.
As long as the trash isn’t coffee flavoured, I mean. That, even I won’t eat. That, and champagne. Champagne tastes like shit. Most alcohol, actually, now that I think about it. Beers, wines, spirits - they all taste like shit. I hate bitter flavours, basically. That’s the problem, the problem is that I have a horrendous sweet tooth and hate bitter things because they’re like the opposite of that.
(I don’t know why anyone drinks champagne, or beers, for that matter. I’m at least partly convinced that alcoholic drinks are like Christmas in that everyone thinks they have to pretend to enjoy them even though they taste fucking awful because that’s what they see everybody else doing and they don’t know that we could all just collectively drop it if we weren’t so worried about what other people would think of us.)
I enjoy video games, but since I’m often very tired at the moment, I watch them more than I play them, which means that I unfortunately miss some of the finer points of those games sometimes, but it’s better than not being able to enjoy them at all! For the few games I do play, though, the ones I like best are the ones that I can come away from with stories, either about things that happened while I was playing, or off the back of the ideas the game has given me. ARK is a terrific example of the former, whereas the Elder Scrolls series has provided a good and hefty handful of the latter. I love them both. <3
What this means is that I also have a whole bunch of OCs. You can read about them here! I love, love, LOVE it when people ask questions about them, so if you’re interested in them at all, you absolutely must let me know because, again, I don’t talk about them unless someone expresses an interest. I went through a year-long phase a good while ago of writing about them every day and got virtually fuck all in the way of a response for doing it, so you might imagine that I’m a bit discouraged and reluctant to waste my energy writing things that nobody will bother to read. If you are interested, ask.
I also like music! I like it a lot! I have so much fucking music on this fucking computer, you have no idea. I’ve been hoarding music and transferring it from one harddrive to the next every time I get a new PC for the last twenty-five years and I have no intention of stopping. There’s literally everything on here; I don’t think there’s a single genre that I haven’t at least dabbled in over the years. I like to tell people that I like songs rather than genres, which is a pain in the ass because it means that it’s really difficult to guess what I’ll like when people are trying to make recommendations to me.
I guess one thing that I really like is when the instrumentals in a song sound really full and thick and A LOT. That shit hits my reward centre just right and makes me very happy! A few examples I could mention include:
Thru And Thru by Gang Gang Dance:
My very favourite part is the repeating phrase that starts for the first time at 00:59, that’s the good shit. The vocals are less good, unfortunately, but the drums are BIG and DEEP and the rest sounds so fucking soupy and I love it.
The waltz from Die Fledermaus:
I’ve always rather liked classical pieces because an orchestra pretty much always sounds A LOT, but waltzes, and in particular waltzes by Strauss, are fucking great and Die Fledermaus makes my fucking spirit soar when it pops up on my media player at 2am.
Plastic Love by Mariya Takeuchi:
And most citypop, honestly. It all sounds great to me; it’s upbeat, but at the same time it’s quite relaxing. Citypop manages to be energetic and fun to listen to without being overly frenetic like a lot of the pop music I grew up with in the 90s and early 2000s.
And then bizarrely there’s also this, the fucking Ting-A-Ling Waltz played on a fucking mechanical organ:
Which, I mean, I’m annoyed by because I’ve been wholly unable to find another, real recording of this song that tickles my brain like this specific one does.
In short:
HAVE LAYER.
As you might imagine, I have music on in here pretty much every minute that I’m awake, because silence makes me anxious. ( b ._.)b
Also, I have a dog! His name is Beau and he’s my personal assistant. He helps me get out of bed every day and stops me from spending three or four days out of every week sleeping, which is absolutely what I would be doing if he wasn’t here. This is Beau:
He’s a rescue dog and, like me, has some issues with anxiety, but, also like me, with love and support he’s been slowly getting better and has made a ton of progress since I brought him home! I’m very proud of both of us.
I would absolutely have been dead like seven times over by now if it weren’t for this dog, I want to mention. There have been many occasions where I would not have made it back from places without jumping off a bridge into traffic or in front of a train had I not known that he was waiting for me at home and that he’d be trapped in the house if I didn’t return.
Like, that’s a thing that can happen even if I have a good, positive day out. I’m still struggling with a plethora of mental health issues and being outside where people can see me really wears me out, both mentally and physically, and it’s when I start flagging that things tend to get Bad™. The trip to my gender clinic is four hours or so each way, for example, which would be tiring enough without my other bullshit weighing on me, and even though I always come away from my appointments there with good news, the whole thing drains me emotionally on top of the long journey and I will invariably be about ten miles up Shit Creek by the time I get to the platform at Birmingham New Street. It’s not great.
But Beau is waiting at home for me, and it makes all the difference. I wouldn’t be without him for anything now. You couldn’t pay me enough to give him away.
Animals in general are absolutely fantastic, by the way! I fucking love animals. There is not a single animal on Earth that I do not love and cherish. I have favourites, of course - cows, dogs, big cats and little cats, elephants, etc., they’re all great - but every single animal is brilliant and I love them all unconditionally.
I also like monsters and aliens, but I’m quite a bit more discerning when it comes to those because that’s... different. I like monsters and aliens differently to how I like animals. Let’s say that. I like monsters aliens in the same way that I like knights, bikers and certain robots. If you’ve been here for a while, you will probably know exactly how I like those things.
I suppose you could say that there are four traits that most things can potentially have. They can be CUTE, COOL, UGLY and SEXY, and you can get my opinion on anything by mashing two of those words together. For example, I would say that Krogans are UGLY-COOL, whereas Turians are COOL-CUTE and Protheans are COOL-SEXY. Volus are UGLY-CUTE, but Vorcha are UGLY-UGLY because their design doesn’t just appeal to me at all. See how that works? It’s a simple but comprehensive system for figuring out what you like about things aesthetically. ( b ._.)b
(Full disclosure, though: I’ve never played Mass Effect and have no interest in doing so, so I know nothing about it except that some of the aliens are cool and/or sexy. Do not ask me any questions about it that run any deeper than “WOULD YOU FUCK THIS ALIEN?” because I will not be able to answer them.)
I think dinosaurs are really cool! Everything about them is amazing and every time we find out something new about them, it’s fascinating. It’s not hard to imagine where the dragons that appear in the mythology of nearly every culture on Earth came from when you look at a dinosaur’s bones. Dinosaurs are definitely COOL-COOL. Sometimes they are COOL-UGLY and sometimes they are COOL-CUTE but they are definitely always cool, no matter what. I’ve loved dinosaurs since I was like four years old and I’m never going to stop.
To go off on a completely different tangent, I think intentions are important. It doesn’t matter so much if someone was hurt by your actions or not if your intentions were bad, for example, and it doesn’t matter if your decision to recycle when and where you can won’t make any difference in the face of industrial pollution because your intentions in doing so are good. If your intentions are good, that’s a great start, because everything we do ought to be rooted in compassion - real, genuine compassion - every day of our lives.
For example, sincere compassion involves listening to others and finding out how we can actually, really help them in good and constructive ways. If you’re not interested in listening to anyone and only want to do what you think is best for them, regardless of their actual needs, your intentions aren’t really all that good, are they? All you really intend to do is make yourself feel virtuous and important, which is horseshit. Make your intentions good. Make them good, and make them genuine. I try to live by that as much as I can, and I like to think that I’m honest with myself about my intentions as often as possible. Sometimes my intentions are shitty, and it’s important that I recognise that when it happens and do my best not to behave in shitty ways because of my shitty intentions.
Sometimes when you feel bad, especially when you feel very bad for a very long time, you can work up some really, really shitty intentions and behave in really shitty ways. Learning to identify your bad feelings and the behaviours and intentions they lead you towards is an Important Adult Skill™ that I wish more people took the time to develop.
Also I like Transformers and Megatron is my favourite. Transformers Prime is my favourite series since G1, but although I’ve been meaning to read the comics for many years, reading is hard for me and I’ve yet to get around to it.
This is getting super long but if you ever want to hear more, just drop me a line! My askbox is always open and I’m happy to talk about myself if I know that someone is interested in listening. <3
Dude. When I saw that you use notecards to outline your plots, I found that so impressive! Whenever I write I don't plan.. which is why I feel like my stories don't flow well, and it makes me feel like my writing is trash. At the same time, I really don't know how to plan. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks!
Hi! Thank you for that ask, I’ve been meaning to write something up on how I outline my stories for a while now. You’ve given me the perfect excuse.
Yo! Question for ya: do you still plan on working on chapter 0 for ODDFELLOWS? Just curious, thanks!
Absolutely.
I don’t know how long it will take, but it is very much my intention to write the fucking thing, plus the two other bonus chapters I mentioned and get them out there for folks to read soon in a while eventually before I die.
titansteam replied to your post “Hello from out of the blue! I came to a realization. I love your...”
- I have no idea if my reply went through, so I'll type it again (because if the port-o-potty bathroom internet)- Thanks for sharing! I found it interesting to get little snippets of your life and interests. And I just wanted to say, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of how far you've come with everything life has thrown at you.
Thank you for asking! It’s nice to know that somebody cares enough to be curious about me. <3
Hey, did you (or do you) ever feel like you had to force yourself to write? Whether it be during oddfellows or any other work? I have all these stories that I want to write, but for some reason I'm having a hard time getting myself to do it. I don't know if it's that I doubt my writing abilities or what (but that may be a part of it). I know these stories and fics won't write themselves, so it's rather frustrating. Thanks!
Hey man! I hope you don’t mind that I waited until today to answer this; I decided it’d be better to sleep on it and come back to answer when I wasn’t a barely-awake shitheap anymore. ( b ._.)b
The short answer is yes, I absolutely did and do have times where writing is like pulling teeth. It happens to everyone, no matter how much they love what they’re creating, no doubt about it, but I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all solution for this one-size-fits-all problem, and the same solution might not even be good for you, personally, every time it happens.
Sometimes you can make it better by taking a break, sometimes you can make it better by pushing through it, sometimes you have to employ a combination of the two and just write a little as and when you feel you can; you really do just have to feel it out and find what works best for you at that specific time. The one most important thing, though, that applies to all cases, is that you don’t beat yourself up for it when this does happen, because you’ll never, ever become more productive by beating yourself up. I speak from experience on this matter and I can assure you, wholeheartedly, that this is the case. Be kind to yourself, be gentle. Treat yourself as you would treat a friend having the same problems. If you wouldn’t say it to, let’s say, Philip, don’t say it to yourself, either.
Other possible solutions to not being able to write:
Did you eat a food and/or drink a water? Do that if you haven’t done it lately. Are you tired? Go to bed, or maybe take a nap on the couch if it’s not bedtime yet. Make sure your basic physical needs are met!
Sometimes the problem is that you know what needs to happen but haven’t figured out what specific words you need to use when you do the actual writing part. Meditate for a while on how you’ll actually tell the story, specifically on the words you’ll use and how the sentences will sound and flow. The shower is an excellent place for this.
Seriously, take a shower. There are eldritch forces at play in the shower cubicle, and I tell you, they are real. I figure out like 60% of my shit in the shower. It works. I guarantee it.
Make sure you have a Reward™ handy for when you do manage to do something. Not in the vanilla “Alright, if I do this, I can have that” sort of way that people with self control tend to mean, but just in general. Have treats in the house that are kept in a different room to the room you write in, so you can’t just look over and see them and reach for them, but if you get to the end of the night and you’ve written something, go and get one before you quit.
Learn a soothing hobby that keeps your hands busy. Knitting and felting are both excellent choices, and once you get reasonably competent with them, you really can just sit there and have something in your hands while you listen to music and mull things over. Having a pet in your lap and stroking them will also achieve much the same effect.
Obviously, these are all only things that work for me, and your mileage may vary, but they’re great starting points that might lead you to other things that do work for you, or that work better for you. Don’t get frustrated if the same solution that worked previously doesn’t work all the time, either! That’s a thing that happens occasionally, and it’s usually a decent sign that you just need a break. Take it easy for a while, maybe get yourself something nice for dinner, that sort of thing.
Not being able to produce content is seldom a sign that you need to be harder on yourself. More often than not, it’s a sign that you need to be a little kinder. Don’t fall into the trap of employing too much of the stick when what you really need is a little more of the carrot.
I hope this helps! ( b ._.)b
Do you think you'll ever post drabbles after you finish the fic and chapter 0? (I love your writing so much and this little dbd universe you've created 💕)
There will probably be doodles and/or drabbles if I get them, yes! You should keep an eye on the #oddfellows (fic) tag if you’re interested in seeing things like that.
Likewise, if you have any fanart that you want me to see, you should also use that tag, since I track it and get very excited when I see someone other than myself posting in it. ( b ._.)b
titansteam replied to your post: Hey, did you (or do you) ever feel like you had to...
Much appreciated!!
Anytime, dude. If you ever need to talk, just drop me a line! ( b ._.)b