9 Week Update:

9 week update:

Twelve year old is openly gleeful about inheriting my best t-shirts, very sad that my favorite leather jacket is now too tight in the biceps

Yesterday: THREE WEEKS ON T WHY NO SHOULDER GROWTH????

Today: (puts on shirt, sleeves are borderline too tight) ....huh

Snippet from my queer polyamorous romance novel, Community Witch - an unapologetically trope-y, cozy, and relationship-driven romance story about the healing from trauma, found family, and joyful queer relationships. (Looking to publish next year.) ---

“My life has turned into a Lifemark movie,” Aspen groaned, flopping dramatically onto their bed. “Thirty year old enby leaves the big city, including their terrible partner and the job they hate, to move to a beautiful small town, has meet cute with beautiful stranger before running into The One That Got Away.”

There was a choking sound on the other end of the line.

“You’re allowed to laugh,” Aspen grumbled. “Even I think it’s ridiculous, and I’m living it.”

Becks didn’t laugh, but Aspen could hear the grin in her voice. “I assume the beautiful stranger is Rav, but who is The One That Got Away?”

“Remember that guy I was hopelessly in love with in high school? The wholesome football player?”

“Maybe?”

“My best friend? The one that was over all the time?”

“Oh my god, that himbo you tutored, then pined for the rest of high school? The one you wanted to smash from orbit?”

“Not a himbo,” Aspen bristled, unable to argue with the rest of Becks’ description. “Anyway. She’s Nat now. I ran into her at the gym just now when I was dropping off cards around town. And we’re going to catch up when she’s done with work.”

This time, Becks did laugh – gleeful peals that made Aspen smile despite themself.

Jesus Christ yes. This.

figured out why i dislike the term non-man so much thanks random screenshot

"Too much?" I asked hesitantly.

"No!" he exclaimed, shaking his head vigorously. "I just..." G'raha's mouth opened and closed several times. "I didn't even think to ask for this," he finally said in a small voice. "And it's exactly what I wanted? And I don't know what I've done to deserve this."

My heart jack-knifed in my chest as I moved to the love seat and pulled G'raha into a crushing hug.  "You were yourself, you dolt," I scolded gently. "You deserve nice things, and we enjoy giving them to you."

It seemed as if G'raha might try to argue with me, until Alisaie cut the tension with a typically Alisaie joke. "Especially when the nice things we're giving you are our dicks. I rather like that bit."

G'raha laughed weakly and relaxed into the embrace. "Good. I do too."

--

(Chapter 2 of my Free Use G'raha fic that is planned to be six chapters is going to be twice the length of the first chapter.

Why am I like this.)

New FFXIV fic: G'raha wants us to fuck him about his trauma

Length: 4K words - with 5 more chapters planned, (Eventual) very smutty smut coming in the next chapter Alisaie / G'raha Tia / Warrior of Light

G'raha was reading a book in my sitting room the next time I woke up and shuffled out in search of food. Despite having been warned by Alisaie, it was hard not to react to how terrible he looked. The bags under his bloodshot eyes made me suspect that he might not have slept at all since our return.

He looked up at me as I approached and smiled with forced jocularity. "Ah, Savvel! I see my guess as to when you'd awaken was accurate. Alisaie went to get dinner for all of us - she'll be back shortly. I also took the liberty of reading you while you were out, and you'll be relieved to know that you should be able to do things besides eat and sleep by tomorrow." He fidgeted nervously with the book in his lap as he spoke, looking so fearful that I was going to be angry with him that I didn't even have the heart to tease him about how utterly predictable he had been in choosing crystal transformation as his method of self-sacrifice.

"Instead of arguing about which of us is angry at who, how about we skip all that and admit we're both idiots," I groaned as I flopped onto the couch next to his chair. I looked over at him through half-lidded eyes, taking shameless advantage of the fact that I knew G'raha found me irresistible when I was sleep-rumpled. "Though if you tell Alisaie I said that, I'll deny everything. Now come here."

The wondering disbelief in his eyes almost broke my heart in two. "You... you're sure?"

"Raha," I shot back, packing those two syllables with loving derision. "I'm too tired to sweep you off your feet properly, so meet me halfway here."

G'raha's eyes were watery as he finally tumbled forward into my arms where he belonged, and for several minutes we said nothing as we just... held each other. And it was everything.

Alisaie returned a few minutes later, carrying what seemed like an obscene number of bags until I mentally tallied everything I had eaten since first waking up. She grinned when she saw G'raha and I cuddling on the couch, though I noted that the tension in her shoulders didn't ease completely.

Not that I blamed her. G'raha was clearly in worse shape than I was.

Alisaie set out her purchases on the table and we helped ourselves to a selection of our favorite foods from The Last Stand. I shared a concerned look with Alisaie when G'raha just stared at his burger instead of biting into it.

"I... I want to ask you something," he said slowly, his voice almost completely toneless.

"Okay," I said gently when he seemed to need a prod.

G'raha's ears were flattening themselves against his head. "I suppose it's more accurate to say that I want to ask you for something. Though, I acknowledge that it may sound foolish, or silly, and that you might not... you might need..."

"Raha." Alisaie said, with such exquisite tenderness that she even surprised herself. "Tell us what you want."

G'raha's ears came up slightly, but his tail continued to twitch. "What would you say to going away where no one could get at us for... say. A week? All three of us?"

"I'd say that sounds nice," I responded cautiously. "I'm under strict orders to get some real rest this time anyhow. Where did you have in mind?"

"I... I didn't have my heart set on a particular destination, as such," G'raha demurred as he unaccountably started to turn pink. "I was thinking more of. Ah. A possible agenda."

We said nothing and waited him out.

"I want to be your free use fuck hole for a week," he finally blurted out.

Read the whole thing on AO3

Oh shit, I gotta look into this

>First, we’ve discovered that about a quarter of all the internet connection in or out of the house were ad related. In a few hours, that’s about 10,000 out of 40,000 processed.

>We also discovered that every link on Twitter was blocked. This was solved by whitelisting the https://t.co domain.

>Once out browsing the Web, everything is loading pretty much instantly. It turns out most of that Page Loading malarkey we’ve been accustomed to is related to sites running auctions to sell Ad space to show you before the page loads. All gone now.

>We then found that the Samsung TV (which I really like) is very fond of yapping all about itself to Samsung HQ. All stopped now. No sign of any breakages in its function, so I’m happy enough with that.

>The primary source of distress came from the habitual Lemmings player in the house, who found they could no longer watch ads to build up their in-app gold. A workaround is being considered for this.

>The next ambition is to advance the Ad blocking so that it seamlessly removed YouTube Ads. This is the subject of ongoing research, and tinkering continues. All in all, a very successful experiment.

>Certainly this exceeds my equivalent childhood project of disassembling and assembling our rotary dial telephone. A project whose only utility was finding out how to make the phone ring when nobody was calling.

>Update: All4 on the telly appears not to have any ads any more. Goodbye Arnold Clarke!

>Lemmings problem now solved.

>Can confirm, after small tests, that RTÉ Player ads are now gone and the player on the phone is now just delivering swift, ad free streams at first click.

>Some queries along the lines of “Are you not stealing the internet?” Firstly, this is my network, so I may set it up as I please (or, you know, my son can do it and I can give him a stupid thumbs up in response). But there is a wider question, based on the ads=internet model.

>I’m afraid I passed the You Wouldn’t Download A Car point back when I first installed ad-blocking plug-ins on a browser. But consider my chatty TV. Individual consumer choice is not the method of addressing pervasive commercial surveillance.

>Should I feel morally obliged not to mute the TV when the ads come on? No, this is a standing tension- a clash of interests. But I think my interest in my family not being under intrusive or covert surveillance at home is superior to the ad company’s wish to profile them.

>Aside: 24 hours of Pi Hole stats suggests that Samsung TVs are very chatty. 14,170 chats a day.

>YouTube blocking seems difficult, as the ads usually come from the same domain as the videos. Haven’t tried it, but all of the content can also be delivered from a no-cookies version of the YouTube domain, which doesn’t have the ads. I have asked my son to poke at that idea.