apocalypselog

[apocalypselog]

Boycott hoyoverse, please.

I used to be a big genshin impact lore buff, i played, i read, i was on forums, i made fanart, and then i was deeply disrespected by the game itself (this post is about natlan)

I am brazilian and i follow a religion named candomblé. Long story short, its from yoruba people who were sent to brazil as slaves, then went through a big process of spreading out to not just black people, but light-skinned people of lower classes like my family. We believe in the creation by Olorum, the power of Axé, and the Orixás.

Natlan, as of now, has two characters named Iansan and Ororon. These names come from not just the yoruba predecessors of candomblé, but also the religion itself, the Orixá deities Iansã and Olorum.

My religion, my deities. My mother's deities. The statuettes in my house. Their names are recycled cheaply to be used trivially. Never have we of candomblé ever gotten mentioned by AAA games or films that give such attention to detail like Genshin does, and we are disrespected. Our Gods are used like rags for someone's profit to be thrown away, washed out. They do not convey our beauty, our grit, our wonder, they do not convey us but they profit from us.

People love to tell us that it is just a game, but think again: games are not entitled to disrespect us just because of their nature. We are entitled to complain, to scream, because this is cruelty. You brutalize our image, butcher our names, for what?

When I was younger, I used to look at games with religious imagery very curiously. It was always weird to see the faith of the people I know be used for aesthetic reasons or just because it looks cool. The same has now happened to me, but times worse. People will say anything to justify this mockery and throw excuses to keep playing the product of a corporation that won't ever understand what it means to be us.

Boycott, complain, scream, because I will do it too. I regret the time I invested in playing, in reading, in watching, in dedicating myself to something that would never do me justice. It is not expensive to change a character's name, not even talking about the model. I don't plan on re-entering the fandom while it still lies unaware of the gross source material's true colors. Candomblé is not mythology, it's faith. We are alive. We have existed for centuries and will continue to grow, despite the challenges we face.

[apocalypselog]

So, about short stories...

This year, it was my goal to become a SFWA qualifying author by focusing on publishing my short fiction. I wrote about 20k words of short stories over winter break '21, and I spent the rest of the new year editing and submitting those stories. Since then, I’ve sent over 100 submissions, and I’ve received 77 rejections and 7 acceptances. Of those acceptances, 4 are in SFWA professional magazines (at least, before they changed their qualifying guidelines) and 1 is in an HWA professional magazine.

Needless to say, short story publication occupies a FAR GREATER portion of my brain than it has any right to. Below are some rambling thoughts I have about the process behind short story publication.

This introduction is intended to bring you to the dark side (a.k.a. you, yes, you, should be writing short fiction)

The process of submitting short stories is SO EASY, especially when compared to novels. Your cover letter will probably be less than 4 sentences. You just attach your short story to an email or form and press “submit,” and then you just wait. Having to query a publication or pitch a story before submitting are both very rare occurrences, and typically reserved for longer stories, like novellas. I’m serious. Sending something to a mag takes like 30 seconds. I use the same cover letter for everything. It’s stupid how simple this is. Read this formatting guide and you’ve got all the information you need to send a story to like a dozen markets.

Also note that I’m going to refer to short story markets as mags, lit mags, journals, etc, interchangeably, so don’t get confused. Most short story markets, from magazines to anthologies, function in extremely similar ways, at least when it comes to the author's role.

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Please start submitting, but…. not to be a bummer, but it’s a numbers game, and most of those numbers are going to be rejections.

Acceptance rates are low. According to the Submission Grinder, many magazines have acceptance rates lower than 2% (note that I’m usually referring to professional and semi-professional spec fic magazines, since that’s what I submit to.) This statistic is probably artificially increased because the Submission Grinder’s user base is a self-selecting group of authors who care enough about magazine submissions to use a third-party website to track them (a.k.a. the actual acceptance rates are probably even lower than they appear).

So when you see rejections that say “We can’t wait to see more of your work” or you see editors on social media say “We reject good stories every single day,” these aren’t empty platitudes. Magazines recent hundreds of submissions during open calls and are operating on razor-thin budgets (it’s actually very likely that the magazine you’re submitting to doesn’t even turn a profit).

What should you take from this? Submit often, and to as many markets as you can. Don’t bet on a piece getting accepted at one particular magazine. If you’re writing for a specific themed call, have a back-up plan (but probably delay sending that piece to a bunch of new magazines after a rejection; everyone else rejected from the same themed submission call is likely doing the same exact thing, at the same exact magazines).

Anyway, the best way to cope with a rejection is sending out a new submission.

Also, use Submission Grinder to track your subs. I’m in love with this website.

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Should you take simultaneous submission guidelines seriously?

A simultaneous submission is when you send the same story to multiple magazines. Some magazines will tell you that they don’t allow for simultaneous magazines. Some will tell you that it’s totally OK as long as you disclose what you’re doing (in your cover letter) and promptly withdraw your submission from them if it’s accepted elsewhere. The editor of a magazine who bans simultaneous submissions is trying to avoid a specific situation: they’ve devoted a significant amount of time to a story they’re considering for publication, only for them to learn that it has already been purchased by another magazine right before they were going to send the author an acceptance letter.

How often does that specific situation happen? Very rarely. Like I said, acceptance rates are extremely low. The odds that you’ll get two acceptances on the same piece at the same time are just astronomical. Additionally, most magazines will take at least a month to get back to you, but probably significantly longer. It could take you longer than a year to get a piece published if you only submit to one magazine every 1 - 3 months. For some context: out of all my published pieces this year, only one was accepted by the first place I sent it to. The others have between 3 - 6 rejections each. Some of the pieces that I haven’t managed to sell yet have 10+ rejections. Some of these magazines held onto my stories for 100+ days.

In my opinion, it’s a real disservice to authors for a magazine to demand No Simultaneous Submissions while also taking months, and months, and months to respond with rejections. It’s disrespectful. It’s treating you like your time isn’t important. My favorite creative writing professor hated that magazines banned sim subs, and often encouraged us to treat these guidelines with a grain of salt if we decided to start submitting.

So should you listen to a magazine when they say No Sim Subs? It really comes down to your comfort level and how patient you are. You may also need to consider how easy it is to withdraw a piece, because some submission forms make it more difficult than others (looking at you, CWSUBMISSIONS). 

Ultimately, you never have to disclose why you’ve withdrawn a piece from a magazine, and authors CAN and DO withdraw pieces for a variety of reasons.

But if you decide to break writer law and the writer police come to get you, don’t be a snitch, thanks. I said nothing.

--

Lit mag twitter is surprisingly useful

Magazines announce future submission calls, their reading period schedules, and themed issues on twitter usually far in advance. You won’t get this information unless you’re checking their individual websites regularly (which would be a waste of time). I wouldn’t be prepared for half of these open calls if I didn’t have a twitter account. And unlike novel publishing twitter, you don't have to post or interact with anyone to reap these benefits.

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Most speculative fiction magazines are publishing literary fantasy, scifi, and horror.

There are sometimes very clear divisions between literary fiction and genre fiction, but you won’t find that line with pro/semi-pro speculative fiction magazines. In my experience, literary speculative fiction far outnumbers pure genre fiction (however you want to define that). Short stories also tend to be more experimental, in terms of both content and story structure.

Why can short stories afford to take these risks? I think there’s a few reasons for this. The first is that many magazines survive off of yearly crowdfunding campaigns and independent investors/sponsors, not individual sales. So much of their money comes in advance in this lump sum from future subscribers, so they don’t have to cater to market trends like novels do. Additionally, subscribers generally don’t buy magazines because there’s one story in the magazine that they enjoy—odds are, they enjoy the editorial voice of the magazine. They trust the editor(s) to curate a cohesive collection of stories, which means the magazine doesn’t have to depend on a viral, popular story to boost their sales. 

This all comes to a head during award season (the Hugos, Nebulas, the Bram Stoker award, etc). Look, I’ve never edited a magazine, but the way magazine editors are constantly promoting during award season… you know it’s important to them. They’re probably looking for stuff to nominate all year, which means they’re chasing literary fiction, stuff that really resonates with people on a deep personal level. And you’ll see short stories on the ballot by authors you’ve probably never heard of unless you’re really up-to-date with lit mags. In my opinion, this leads to a diversity of fiction that’s very hard to find elsewhere. 

I also think this means you can and should just write whatever the fuck you want without worrying about marketability, which is a really freeing feeling. Seriously, lit mags publish some WEIRD shit.

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Lots of people (including editors) will tell you to read a magazine to get a sense of whether or not your story will be a good fit—I think this is bad advice.

Don’t get me wrong, I think you should read short fiction if you want to write short fiction. I also think that if you dislike the content that a magazine publishes, you probably won’t be able to sell them a piece. And that you can improve your craft by finding a publication (or two, or three) that consistently publish works that you enjoy so you can analyze their structure and incorporate what you’ve learned into your own stories. Additionally, if a magazine’s content really resonates with you, and you consume it regularly, it’s probably because your writing style is similar to their editorial style—this may be a sign that they’ll enjoy your work. That’s something that happens organically, in my opinion, not something that can be forced.

But like I said in my first point, the key to success here is to send out a LOT of submissions. I’ve submitted to over 40 different markets this year. I’ve read stories from maybe 10 of those markets (usually when it was offered for free on their websites). I don’t have the time OR THE MONEY to breeze through issues from that many magazines, and I’m not going to stop myself from submitting somewhere just because I haven’t read what they publish. In fact, I think it’s really unfair for editors to place this onus on the writer, especially if their magazine doesn’t have free content available and especially if their submission guidelines are otherwise vague AF—PLEASE, PLEASE, editors, just tell us what kind of writing you enjoy in the guidelines.

The fact of the matter is, even if you read a magazine and write something specifically for them, odds are you’re going to get rejected anyway. I’m not trying to be a bummer here, that’s really just the statistics. It’s really a fundamental misunderstanding to assume that authors regularly write entire short stories with one specific market in mind, and that they’ll forgo sending that story to other markets because it was only intended for Clarkesworld or F&SF. 

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Personal rejections are nice, but don’t think too hard about them. Alternatively, writing is so much more subjective than you think.

Rejections come in tiers, but they can be summed up as form rejections and personal rejections. Form rejections always look the same, and they are generally (but not always) sent to stories that weren’t really considered that strongly for publication--in fact, many magazines utilize first readers, who are volunteers who read the first few pages of submissions and make a quick judgement call about whether or not to send that story to the editor for second-round consideration. Form rejections often come from first readers. (Of course, this is not always true. Some magazines don't use first readers at all. Some magazines use first readers, but still refer every story to the editor anyway and promise submitting authors that the full text of all submissions are read before a decision is made.)

Personal rejections include specific references to your story, often explaining why the editors decided to reject it. This might be phrased as constructive criticism or simply as observations. Some magazines make it their goal to ONLY send personal rejections, but those are the minority. Typically, personal rejections come after higher tier consideration, and usually take longer to receive than a form rejection.

The thing is that writing is subjective. It’s tempting to think that editors, who are often the arbiters of publication, can objectively separate good stories from bad. The logical conclusion, if you think this way, is that they’ll give you objectively sound advice to revise your piece before you submit to another magazine.

But this isn’t really true. A personalized rejection is giving you good advice—if it were possible to resubmit the same piece to the same editor for the same magazine (and unfortunately, you usually only get one shot). The same advice might not help you sell your piece to a different magazine. In fact, it’s very likely that aspects of your story that one editor disliked will be the same things that make a new editor fall in love with it. I experienced this while submitting my sci-fi/horror story “Rider Within,” which was rejected from PseudoPod because of the amount of exposition in the first few pages. This same piece was accepted by Dark Matter Magazine without any edits after the PseudoPod rejection. The key difference here is that PseudoPod is an audio magazine; every magazine from PseudoPod’s publisher boasts the same line in their submission guidelines, “Our readers can’t skim past the boring parts.” Podcasts have a much smaller margin for too much exposition, and that magazine needs to be picky about that sort of thing to keep their readership. A print/ebook magazine will have different standards.

Really, almost all of my rejections/acceptances can be used as an example for subjectivity in editorial taste. My story “In the Nest Beneath the Mountain-Tree, Your Sisters Dance” sat in Clarkesworld’s second hold pile for a MONTH, which is insane and probably something that will never happen to me again. This same story was rejected by a much smaller magazine (probably by a first reader) after like 3 days of consideration. The story didn’t just suddenly decrease in quality, it’s just that the editor of one of the most selective scifi magazines out there liked it enough to consider it for publication, and a different editor really didn’t enjoy it at al.

Back to the point, there’s still reasonable situations where you may want to make edits after a personal rejection. If you read critical feedback that really resonates with you or if you get feedback that points out parts of the story that you were already iffy about, then by all means, make those edits! You might also want to do some editing if multiple rejections point out the same things.

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Read the submission guidelines, but don’t self-reject.

“Self-rejecting” is when you look at a magazine and tell yourself “my story won’t work here,” or “I don’t fit the submission call,” or “I’m not good enough to be published here.” And not all self-rejection is unwarranted. There’s going to be times where you read the fine print and realize that you’re not the right fit. Submission guidelines are written for a reason, and while the worst thing an editor can say is “no,” it does help if you don’t waste their time (or yours).

That being said, you can really take some submission guidelines with a grain of salt. When it comes to themed calls, there’s a huge variety between magazines who want their theme followed very literally and magazines who consider the theme more of a vague prompt to inspire new ideas—and it can be really hard to tell them apart, so honestly? Just go for it.

And unless a magazine is very clear about “hard no’s” (such as asking you not to submit stories with gore or other triggering content), it’s more accurate to interpret “we don’t like publishing these topics” as “we don’t like the cliches associated with these topics, which makes them a hard sell.” Some magazines will clearly separate their anti-wishlists into Hard No’s versus You Really Need To Impress Us With This Content, but more often, you’ll have to read between the lines. I’ve found that lists of hard sells often include stuff like vampires, zombies, and werewolves, because editors have seen a thousand stories about the same magical creatures, and they’re trying to encourage more diversity in the submissions they receive.

My first publication this year was “Emmory and the Wolf” in LampLight Magazine, and it’s a case where avoiding self-rejection really paid off. LampLight was holding a special call for authors without a pro-sale, and I wanted to get a story in right before the deadline. It was a last minute decision on my part, and I have to admit that I skimmed the guidelines. I’d submitted to LampLight before, and I could vaguely remember that they specifically asked for no werewolf stories, but I didn’t see it in the guidelines this time. A day after I sent that submission, I looked at the guidelines there, and the “no werewolves” rule was there, staring me in the face. I was mortified, and I really debated withdrawing my submission, but ultimately I decided that I would just assume it was a rejection and try to forget that it was sitting there in the Submittable queue. So, of course, imagine my surprise when that story was accepted.

I think a lot of factors went into this acceptance: “Emmory and the Wolf” subverts typical werewolf tropes and rarely features the werewolf (in wolf form) on screen. In fact, almost all of the story is a conversation between a woman and her wife on a road trip. Additionally, I later learned that the editor of LampLight held this special submission call because these two issues of LampLight would be the very last before the magazine closed. If he published werewolf content in an earlier issue, that would have encouraged more people to submit werewolf stories. But that clearly wasn’t a concern here. All of these factors (skimming the guidelines, catching LampLight when it was about to close) are coincidences that I couldn’t have anticipated when I was submitting.

Honestly? I think you should usually err towards submitting over not-submitting, because like I said, the worst you can get is a rejection.

--

Okay, that's honestly it for my short story thoughts. I hope this is helpful, informative, or just kinda interesting to someone ^^ Even if it isn't, I'm glad I got it out of my head.

[apocalypselog]

A Checklist Of Possible Reasons I Am Upset, To Review When I Can't Seem To Figure It Out:

did not eat

new hyperfixation and no time for it

have not done a creative in 24 hrs

Bad Sounds

clothes are touching my body

cold

people

one (1) comment is stuck in my brain like a popcorn kernel

last time I drank water was ??????

nervous nervous nervous nervous

got a Slightly Worse grade than expected

last hug was ??????

slept a full 45 minutes

lonely ............

guts are shredding (again)

have not seen sunlight in 24 hrs

stuck inside

too much screen time

Yay Overwhelm

room is disaster area

have not talked to Person in a while

bored

imposter phenomenon (again)

no current routine

how long have I been working???

Too Much Socialization

and then. and THEN. I may consider:

something is actually wrong

[apocalypselog]

look at me right now get a pack of frozen brussel sprouts from the store, defrost in microwave, cut them into halves or quarters. toss w olive oil, put face-down on baking sheet, sprinkle to taste: black pepper, garlic power (substitute minced garlic), onion powder, salt, paprika if you're feeling funky. add thick-cut onions or frozen corn to the tray too if u want. put in oven at 425 for 20-25 minutes. trust me bro

[apocalypselog]

Did you have formal training for any of this stuff, Red? Because, amateur’s opinion here, your panel arrangement looks really professional.

Kinda depends on your definition, but I never had any specialized art education in school and it wasn't what I specialized in studying. I had some core art classes in middle and high school, one of which was even good, but it was the fairly standard stuff that everybody went through.

That said, my mom is an incredibly skilled artist who DID get formal training at the SAIC, and I got basically all of my foundational art skills from her. She's a painter and illustrator (who I have been slowly persuading to do more things online), so we work in very different mediums, but her understanding of color and composition and the core muscle memory of life-drawing and scientific illustration are skills that transfer from physical to digital very easily. She's truly astonishing, and easily ten times the artist I am - the parts of art I find frustrating and time-consuming are the things she enjoys getting lost in.

So while I haven't studied this stuff in a formal setting, I have been privileged to receive what I consider the best artistic education I could've ever hoped for.

[apocalypselog]

band recommendations from a black punk !!

tl has been discussing poc in alternative scenes specifically punk scenes recently. punk has been a big spintrest for me for a while so id thought id share some bands with poc members that deserve love!!

im more into hxc punk so most of these bands will be hxc subgenres. i will be adding genre’s and country of orgin!! not adding any links for now, look out for any edits.

hong kong fuck you , grindviolence from tijuana, mexico. a project of christian hell, has latino and black members

zulu , powerviolence from los angeles, california, usa. originally a solo project of anaiah lei, all members are black

zyanose , noisy hardcore punk from osaka prefecture, japan. all members are japanese

g.i.s.m. , hardcore punk / heavy metal band from tokyo, japan. all members are japanese

limp wrist , queer hardcore punk from albany, new york, usa. martin sorrondeguy is latino (also apart of los crudos)

los crudos , hardcore punk band from chicago, illinois, usa. all members are latino

despise you , powerviolence band from californa, usa. some if not all members are latino

bad brains , hardcore punk band from washington, d.c, usa. all members are black (probably the most well known band on this list)

gorepot , stoner brutal / slam death metal / grindcore band from taiwan. solo project. their genre is complicated and they aren’t exactly punk but they deserve some love

sebum excess production , deathgrind band from from brazil. solo project (?)

c.a.r.ne , pornogrind band from mexico city, mexico. all members are latino

bodily stew , goregrind band from california, usa. ive heard that eddie and david are latino but i may be wrong

mxmxm , mincegore band from coachella, california, usa. might be a solo project but but ive heard they are latino

chulo , grindviolence band from bogatá, colombia. all members are latino

soul glo , hardcore punk band from philadelphia, pennsylvania, usa. 2 of the current members are black

taqbir , post-punk band. moroccan but based somewhere in europe. all members of the band are anonymous (?)

ill be adding onto this list as i go (im a little tired now) but please recommend bands for this list!!

[apocalypselog]

MYSPACE MUSIC ARCHIVE PROJECT

i found this a while back!! haven’t had much time to look through it but it looks so cool both from a scemo and a data preservation perspective esp cuz a lot of myspace was lost during a bad server migration

[apocalypselog]

shout out to all my not traditionally masculine trans guys:

to the ones who don’t feel comfortable calling themselves a man, so they’re always guys, dudes, or boys

to the ones who still love their old “girl” clothes, the skirts and dresses and bright colors

to the ones who love makeup and nail polish and perfume

to the ones who dont bind or dont pack; to the ones who like having the chests and junk they already have

to the ones who dont want hormones or surgeries

to the ones who shave their legs or dont like body and facial hair; to the ones who still have long hair

to the femboys and the fairies and the girlyboys

to the ones who have a high ambiguous voice and like it that way

to the ones with weird genders, complicated genders, fluid genders, non-conforming genders, genders they take so seriously, genders they can’t be bothered with

i love you so much <3 you are men after my own heart <3

[apocalypselog]

Hi red! I'm making my own webcomic (Aurora is a huge inspiration for me!) and have finally gotten my buffer up to where I want to start posting, but I'm kinda stuck on that step. For a start I'll put it on public hosting places but I love the website for Aurora and ideally I want to have a site like that for it at some point.

I don't want to ask you to get into a full description of how to host your own webcomic and building the site because I imagine that's kind of a lot, but would it be possible for you to point me toward some of the resources you used when you were setting it up?

Congrats! I recommend this tutorial!

[apocalypselog]

Broke af?

But still interested in feeding yourself? What if I told you that there’s a woman with a blog who had to feed both herself and her young son…on 10 British pounds ($15/14 Euro) per week?

Let me tell you a thing.

This woman saved my life last year. Actually saved my life. I had a piggy bank full of change and that’s it. Many people in my fandom might remember that dark time as when I had to hock my writing skills in exchange for donations. I cried a lot then. 

This is real talk, people: I marked down exactly what I needed to buy, totaled it, counted out that exact change, and then went to three different stores to buy what I needed so I didn’t have to dump a load of change on just one person. I was already embarrassed, but to feel people staring? Utter shame suffused me. The reasons behind that are another post all together. 

AgirlcalledJack.com is run by a British woman who was on benefits for years. Things got desperate. She had to find a way to feed herself and her son using just the basics that could be found at the supermarket. But the recipes she came up with are amazing. 

You have to consider the differing costs of things between countries, but if you just have three ingredients in your cupboard, this woman will tell you what to do with it. Check what you already have. Chances are you have the basics of a filling meal already. 

Here’s her list of kitchen basics. 

Bake your own bread. It’s easier than you think. Here’s a list of many recipes, each using some variation of just plain flour, yeast, some oil, maybe water or lemon juice. And kneading bread is therapeutic. 

Make your own pasta–gluten free. 

She gets it. She really does. This is the article that started it all. It’s called “Hunger Hurts”.

She has vegan recipes.

A carrot, a can of kidney beans, and some cumin will get you a really filling soup…or throw in some flour for binding and you’ve got yourself a burger. 

Don’t have an oven or the stove isn’t available? She covers that in her Microwave Cooking section. 

She has a book, but many recipes can be found on her blog for free. She prices her recipes down to the cent, and every year she participates in a project called “Living Below the Line” where she has to live on 1 BP per day of food for five days. 

Things improved for me a little, but her website is my go to. I learned how to bake bread (using my crockpot, but that was my own twist), and I have a little cart full of things that saved me back then, just in case I need them again. She gives you the tools to feed yourself, for very little money, and that’s a fabulous feeling. 

Tip: Whenever you have a little extra money, buy a 10 dollar/pound/euro giftcard from your discount grocer. Stash it. That’s your super emergency money. Make sure they don’t charge by the month for lack of use, though.

I don’t care if it sounds like an advertisement–you won’t be buying anything from the site. What I DO care about is your mental, emotional, and physical health–and dammit, food’s right in the center of that. 

If you don’t need this now, pass it on to someone who does. Pass it on anyway, because do you REALLY know which of the people in your life is in need? Which follower might be staring at their own piggy bank? Trust me: someone out there needs to see this. 

[apocalypselog]

hey everyone i made a playlist compiled of exclusively black artists with songs spanning over several different genres and decades. black people have contributed so much to the genres we celebrate today and that is more often than not forgotten. let's lift up those voices today.

[apocalypselog]

“In The Wee Free Men, the village has a tradition of burying a shepherd with a piece of wool on his shroud, so that the recording angel will excuse him all those times during lambing when he failed to attend church — because a good shepherd should know that the sheep come first. I didn’t make that up. They used to do that in a village two miles from where I live. What I particularly liked about it was the implicit loyalist arrangement with God. Americans, I think, sometimes get puzzled by people in Ireland who call themselves loyalists yet would apparently up arms against the forces of the crown. But a loyalist arrangement is a dynamic accord. It doesn’t mean we will be blindly loyal to you. It means we will be loyal to you if you are loyal to us. If you act the way we think a king should act, you can be our king. And it seemed to me that these humble people of the village, putting their little piece of wool on the shroud, were saying, “If you are the God we think you are, you will understand. And if you are not the God we think you are, to Hell with you.” So much of Discworld has come from odd serendipitous discoveries like that.”

— Terry Pratchett, “Straight from the Heart, via the Groin” (collected in A Slip of the Keyboard)

[apocalypselog]

do you have any tips on passing (or just looking more masc) for pre-transition trans guys?

sure, i do! =) i had to spend a long time in that phase!

cutting your hair is very scary and often times the hardest thing to commit to. do NOT force yourself to cut your hair right away if it scares you. work on your wardrobe, accessories, and how you act and talk first. if you want to chop all your hair off, however, i recommend doing it. go for the longest hairstyle you'd be comfortable with, then you can work your way down shorter if it's too long. you can experiment to find what you like, i just honestly recommend googling "modern men's hairstyles" or whatever to get a good idea

trying to push your voice ALL the way down into your chest at once is not going to work, but if you slowly start deepening your voice by speaking less out of your nose/throat area, you can begin to masculinize your voice and prepare it for T, if that's where you're headed. you can literally just practice talking like guys or people with husky voices. i also recommend listening to how guys and masculine people talk and just kind of practicing their mannerisms. it's okay to emulate someone from a movie, show, etc. and practice how they act

also watching how men and masculine people walk, sit, hold themselves, etc. goes a long way, even changing how you hold your shoulders helps. pay attention to if you sway your hips a lot when you walk.

as for clothes, like many other trans men, I preach the gospel of layering clothes! this is what helped me a lot when i was in school. I would wear tank tops underneath t shirts underneath a button-down shirt when the weather was appropriate, and it would create enough layers to draw away from the chest while i was still using sports bras instead of a binder

men's jeans actually have a wider variety of cuts than you'd think, and you can experiment with different ones you like. you can also look into men's slacks, shorts, and things like cargo pants. i love cargo pants, but i guess that makes sense as a butch lesbian LOL. i don't understand why people hate them, having pockets is literally a lifesaver. men's shorts are also really fun, honestly basketball shorts are a very trans manlook. we love basketball shorts

small masculine accessories can go a loooonnngg way. i used to wear a wallet chain, for example, and i used to stack masculine necklaces like thick chains, dragons, stuff like that. boots and hiking shoes are also very masculine, as well as most brands of sneakers. you can even get away with converse and vans if you're an emo/alternative boy. if you're into body modding, eyebrow and bridge piercings are very masculine.

some trans men do wear masculinizing makeup, such as painting on five o' clock shadow, putting mascara in one's eyebrows and/or facial hair if you have a natural/light mustache, contouring the face to look more rugged and masculine, such as making one's cheek bones look more pronounced and steep, squaring one's jaw, pronouncing and sharpening the brow ridge, and so on.

basically it's up to you how hard you wanna push it! hope that information was helpful! that's a list of things that can help you before you've transitioned or started hormones! if you'd like to know anything else feel free to stop by and send another ask, take care, stay safe! love yourself

[apocalypselog]

i didn’t see anything in the faq but do you have information about insurance that covers surgeries? im looking into phallo within the next few years but $$$

Lee says:

Finding insurance to cover transition

Medicare and other health insurance information (Facebook Group)

Medicare and CPT codes

Lower/bottom surgery

http://www.phallo.net/surgeons/

[apocalypselog]

Calming masterpost:

crisis/urgent support lines and sites

hotlines/crisis lines for depression, domestic abuse, alcohol and drug abuse, teens, pregnancy, lgbt and more

mental support community - a forum where you can post that you are in a crisis right now and need peer support as soon as possible

imalive crisis chat - online one-on-one chat for if you’re in at risk of hurting yourself etc

self harm alternatives

si urges alternatives

relaxation/anxiety relief

do nothing for two minutes

interactive silk art

guided relaxation

watch a dream

100,000 stars

thisissand - create sandscapes on your screen with your mouse

calming gif

the quiet place project

the quiet place - find some quiet

the thoughts room - a super calm page to unburden yourself from bad thoughts

the comfort spot - a place for anonymous venting with out anybody judging you for who you are

the dawn room - my personal favourite, especially good for when you feel alone

know that it will be okay - when a moment is too hard for you - come here.

music and sounds

my anxiety relief playlist - on 8tracks

my positivity/recovery playlist - on 8tracks

‘stay strong’ playlists - on 8tracks

coffee shop sounds

rain sounds

calmsound - nature sounds

rainycafe

comfort food

one minute cookie in a mug

brownie in a mug

several cookie recipes

25 hot chocolate recipes

loads and loads of snacks - 533 quick and easy recipes for a range of snacks on studentrecipe

lots of different in-a-mug recipes

chocolate pudding in a mug - my personal fave (lil tip: add mini marshmallows for extra gooey yumminess)

advice and tips

how to be okay with yourself

25 resolutions

life hacks

more life hacks

a hella ton more life hacks - so many life hacks dude soon ur gonna never have a day-to-day stress again

school masterpost - school sucks so bad but hopefully this can help ease the stress

how to love yourself

how to bypass restricted wifi omg

alleviate menstrual cramps

boost your confidence

love yourself!

self help after anxiety

stop biting your nails

stop procrastinating

stop skipping breakfast

videos and movies

cure to sadness (video)

the movie blog - a blog dedicated to movie masterposts you will never be without a movie to watch again

cute roulette - THE BEST PLACE ON THE INTERNET ITS LITERALLY JUST A HUGE ROULETTE OF VIDEOS OF CUTE ANIMALS WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT FROM LIFE

random acts of kindness caught on film

disney movies

movies for angsty teens

distractions etc

rice questions - answer simple questions and donate free rice to people in poverty!!

click to give - just click a button to donate (it costs nothing) food to animals shelters, people in poverty and homeless veterans; mammograms to fight breast cancer; therapy for people on the autism spectrum; alzheimer’s and diabetes research; a book to a child; protect wildlife habitat

break something - good for anger

loads of cute games

how to make a blanket nest

learn something new - a masterpost of hobbies

exercise like a superhero

nice words

things to do when your sad

slap a bald guy with an eel - this is ridiculously entertaining

watch a dog lick your screen - it loops, so you could literally watch for hours if you want

calmingmanatee

daily puppy

how to make a comfort box

download free books

extras

emergency compliment!

lots of compliments - they even include ur name aw

huge list of bloggers who have put themselves forward as willing to listen/chat without judgement

getting anon hate?

:) tag - all the posts that i’ve tagged for making me happy

7cupsoftea - free, anonymous, confidential talks with trained listeners

get a hug

Calming songs, playlists and instrumentals:

Sing Me to Sleep

The Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Boost your Mood (peppier and happy songs)

The Driving Mixtape

Study

Summer Nights

It’s Going to be Fine

Calm & Collected

Once Upon a December - Piano (song)

Clair de Lune (song)

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (song)

Calming/distracting Websites

The Quiet Place

Rainymood.com

Calm.com

Soundrown.com - calming sounds to mix and match

A website to distract yourself

A recovery masterpost

A post of interesting things

Ungruntle yourself

Press a magic button and fix everything

Play cute games

Almost every movie your little heart desires (i suggest you use with adblocker)

How to love yourself

A website that compliments you

Crafts and activities, easy and fun DYI projects

Glitter calm jars

A list of things to do to curb anxiety

Make a blanket nest

Silky summer legs

Lots of food recipes; mostly desserts  

For bad days masterpost

Make some microwave snacks

Five minute fudge

Make a phone case

A bunch of hobbies!

Self care list!

Pretty gold-dipped feathers (for decorating or anything)

What to do when:

You’ve been triggered

You’re having an anxiety attack

You’re having a panic attack

Your face is red and puffy after crying

You just had a fight

You hate yourself

You want to avoid being stressed

You want to get over your ex

Meditation and breathing

Guided Meditations

Do Nothing for 2 Minutes

Calm Down

Meditation Tips

90 second relaxation exercise

Simple things

Pretty Tree

When You Feel You Have Lost Everything

See Some BLOOD

Press a Button to Make Everything OK

Calming Manatee

Calming Gif

Make Something!

Jump into a Sofa Fort!

Make a Comfort Box

Glitter Jar Or This One

Other Nice Things

A Page To Help You Recover!!!

Coping Skills & Distractions

The Quiet Place. Shhhhh

For When You’re Upset

The Nicest Place on the Internet

Player 2

10 Most Relaxing Online Games

Talk To Someone That Will Listen

Not Having a Good Day?

How-to Love Yourself

Ground Yourself X X  X

Mood Chart

Do Nothing For Two Minutes

Rainymood

The Comfort Spot

Weave Silk

Seed Plant Breeder

This Is Sand

C.A.L.M

Calming/Relaxing Music:

Soft Piano: x, x, x, x, x

The Sound of Waves: x

The Sound of a Storm + Waves: x

[apocalypselog]

Tricks to make your voice lower

Lowering your voice is always a chore. Coaching your voice to be lower than what it was previously was is tricky but there are ways to make your voice sound more masculine before you start T.

The Tilt Technique: Probably the most common trick and some of you may already know how to do this:

-Tilt your head back and stretch out your neck, I’ve figure out that doing that helps prevent making your voice sore afterwards.

- Now, don’t keep your neck too stretched but still keep it back and hum at your lowest volume.

- Slowly lower your head to have your chin meet your chest while still humming.

- Do this about 5-10 times or until your voice is at the point at which you want it.

- keep in mind that this effect is only temporary (until you practice more and more); and that doing this too much without water or breaks can actually damage your vocal chords and give you multiple throat aches.

Some other things that give an immediate illusion that your voice is naturally that low:

-Talking slower and quieter: This helps a lot with passing, especially in stores and in schools.

- Physically lowering your voice slightly: we can all lower our voices to sound deeper, but when is it to the point that people can notice it? Unfortunately lowering it too much is super noticable, but lowering it a little bit isn’t usually that noticable.

There are many temporary (and by temporary I mean like 20 minutes) things you can do but those aren’t that good.

If you have money or are able, there are also voice coaches that can help you get your voice lower.

If there are any techniques that I missed, please add them if you happen to reblog :)