A Patreon Update, a romance short, and several serial updates!
Good evening and happy Thursday!
So, first and foremost, I wanted to mention that there's been a problem with Patreon's payment processing - from what people have been able to surmise (naturally, Patreon has made no announcement about it themselves), Patreon have moved their offices from California to Dublin, Ireland, which has created a flag on many people's outgoing payments as the unexpected foreign rather than domestic charge is assumed to be fraudulent by their payment providers.
There's then a further fuck-up where people are either struggling to re-register the same payment information, or they're getting redirected to a 404 page, with all the creators they're supporting getting wiped from their list.
I've noticed a significant drop-off this month of monthly subscribers, far more than I'd usually expect at the end of a given month even in the summer, so I'm guessing some of my supporters have been impacted.
Please don't panic - obviously my primary income is from Patreon and I'm reliant on it for the bulk of what I earn, but sometimes these fuck-ups happen, and the problem can only be fixed as quickly as Patreon sort it out.
Make sure you maintain some caution with phone calls from your bank or payment providers - don't give out any details you wouldn't ordinarily share over the phone, make sure you're definitely talking to your payment providers, and so on. I can entirely understand wanting to be anxious to sort this out when you're aware that as a Patreon supporter you're giving an important part of a creator's income, whether that's for me or for any of the others you support, but certainly don't abandon caution in favour of haste.
Obviously there's still no new podcast episodes from me this week, but rest assured I'll announce them when they're out again.
There have been seven new pieces published on Trans Erotica this week, which is the Medium publication I run for trans and nonbinary authors of erotica, and I absolutely encourage you to go have a scroll through and check out the new pieces. If you're interested in submitting yourself, submissions are open, and I've already published August 2023's writing prompts if you're looking for some inspo!
New Media Recommendations
I've been rewatching Downton Abbey from the beginning, which I do regularly enough, so I don't have many recs as far goes television - I did go to the Leeds Queer Market, though, which was great, and I did share some of the things I bought and linked some of the artists here.
I would like to recommend They Cloned Tyrone (2023, dir. Juel Taylor), which is just a fucking triumph - it's heartfelt and has a real sadness behind it, but it's funny, it's rapid-paced, it's got an incredible cast and a truly incredible sense of place, setting, and costuming with its homage to 70s Blaxploitation films, and in general it's just fucking awesome. I can't recommend it enough.
I did also go to see Barbie (2023, dir. Greta Gerwig), and it was better than I expected, with a far more nuanced exploration of gender dynamics than people talking about it made me think it would have. I've written up a review of it that should be out the weekend.
It's a funny flick in any case, and I really loved Allan and the queer Kens, and while it's not going to enter my list of particular favourites and hasn't made a huge impact on me as a piece of art, I'd say it's worth a watch.
July's Top Stories
Top Non-Fiction: Yentl: A Trans Man Studying Talmud is Distracted by Gay Thoughts
Yentl (1983, dir. Barbra Streisand) and Yentl the Yeshiva Boy by Isaac Bashevis Singer.
This is a long piece exploring gay transmasculinity in Yentl!
On Medium / / On Patreon
Top Fiction: The Stasis Box
Erotic Short. A prisoner is frozen in time with his holes still accessible for the crew of a mining vessel to use.
5k, rated E, trans M/cis M but hundreds of other people. A trans twink agrees to be involved in an experiment in lieu of his year-long prison sentence — he’s placed in a stasis box, frozen in time, with his holes still accessible for the crew of a mining vessel to make use of.
This is honestly one of the most fucked-up things I’ve ever written, it goes big on the sci-fi body horror fucky horniness.
Full consent is given throughout, the twink knows what he’s in for. Featuring medical kink, fingering, anal and vaginal fingering and sex, sensitivity, time stop, big overstimulation, mind-break and ahegao, objectification, huge come inflation, gaping, come vomiting, general degradation.
On Medium / / On Patreon
New Works Published
Romance Short: A Fish Riding A Bicycle
A repressed wizard is at odds with the Dean of Magical Arts’ new secretary.
4k. Silly banter back and forth between a grumpy Mr Fish and a smug new personal assistant of the Dean’s — Mr Cross. Adapted from a TweetFic.
On Medium / / On Patreon
Serial Update: Powder and Feathers
Chapter Fifty-Three: Cold Comfort. Aimé and Asmodeus get on with Aimé’s packing. When pressed, Asmodeus breaks down.
This chapter has been a long time coming, and I've been so fucking excited about it - we're in the end stretches of Powder and Feathers now, and I just loved writing this last chapter.
On Medium / / On WorldAnvil / / On Ao3
New Serial: Little Devils
Velma Kuroda, a young specialist in magical and enchanted antiques, is taken under the wing of Hamish MacKinnon, a master enchanter and centuries-old immortal - a crotchety old man possessed by a horde of little demons.
On Medium / / On WorldAnvil / / On Ao3