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Stay StrongMacro photo of wooden matches in a cardboard box. Photo shared with a Creative Commons license by Ian Talmacs on Unsplash.

Stay Strong

Published by mightytinygiant on March 1, 2025

I’m writing to offer an update, a pep talk, and a reminder about some resources that might be helpful right now. This is longer than I intended, which is very in-character for me, and it’s also shorter and less polished than I want it to be, because I am honoring my limits today.

If you’re here to contribute to the mutual aid effort I made this weekend for SizeCon event supplies, scroll to the section below Protect is a verb.

Content tags: this article discusses mental health, COVID, wildfires, censorship and banning books erotic content, and activism efforts against fascism. As always, I welcome help in tagging—please let me know when I have missed anything important.

 

Personal update

I’ve been on hiatus for many months now due to a bad writing-related injury. Creatives—please take steps to care for your hands and arms as you work. Especially if you live in the US and have to rely on our “healthcare” system to see you through it. Don’t risk it!

My hiatus is also due to the fact that I feel caught in limbo between the platforms of Twitter and BlueSky because I don’t have the capacity to transfer over hundreds of muted words. My mental health has been so rough that I can’t really join the transition to #SizeSky until I figure that out. (I did offer some tips here.) I’m glad that muting became a feature last year, but until I can manage to face a wall that was built, brick by brick, of my hard-limit content, I’m feeling back to square one.

I’ve been making slow, small progress in backing up my stories to Archive of Our Own, AO3, the platform that actually won a Hugo back in 2019. It’s largely for fanfiction, but many original creative works live there too, and a surprising number of my most beloved authors seem to have made their start there. If you want to support me creatively right now, then offering kudos, comments, and bookmarks to my stories on AO3 will help me connect with my audience.

I’m not planning to share anything there that won’t be living here on my website as well, but in this uncertain world where romance authors can be locked out of their own Google Drive accounts, and where Project 2025 is taking aim at all explicit sexual content, it seems wise to at least try to have my content in multiple places. I’m backing up my work and website on external hard drives and the cloud, but honestly after the loss of Tumblr in 2018 I don’t trust any platform completely. Have you backed up your work?

 

Update on porn & book bans

Please watch this 9-minute video on Project 2025 as it is urgently relevant to romance writers, erotica writers, librarians, sex workers, and anyone who reads or consumes romance novels or porn. Quoting from Project 2025:

Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.

Project 2025, page 5

Source for the direct quote here, with longer quotes, definitions, and additional analysis. The book ban has already begun in Oklahoma and Florida:

Infographic titled Who would be affected by Project 2025’s Porn Ban? Labeled bubbles answer the question. Drag Performers (with a picture of RuPaul). Creators of LGBTQ+ Books (picture of LGBTQ+ book stack). Adult Entertainers and Sex Workers (picture of a computer open to OnlyFans). LGBTQ+ Musicians (picture of Chappell Roan), Romance Authors (collage of romance books). Teachers and Librarians (picture of a young woman librarian putting a book on a shelf). Sex Educators (Cartoon of three children reading a health book). Fic Writers and Fan Artists (picture of someone holding a smart phone open to AO3 Homepage). Sex Positive Artists (picture of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion on WAP cover). Makers of LGBTQ+ movies (screenshot from Love Simon). Caption “...and you!!! A person who enjoys the works of these creators.” Project 2025 Truth dot com slash porn dash ban. Link to image Infographic. The Republicans want to ban all porn. You may be surprised how they define that. Underneath, cover art for three teen friendly sex-ed books teens: It’s Perfectly Normal, Sex Education for Teens, and Welcome to Sex! At the bottom, text reads, "The book ban has already begun in Florida. Stop it with your vote in November." Project 2025 Truth dot com slash book hyphen ban.

 

What to do

If, like me, you are confused, exhausted, and overwhelmed, I’m going to offer some resources for what to do.

My top tip? You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Look for the helpers. Look for people already doing the work and ask what they need. Then the leadership can come from those closest to the issues and most familiar with the nuances and actions that are most helpful.

Continue readingStay Strong
Hiatus How To: When, how & why to take a break from NSFW TwitterA close-up photo of a dandelion with most of its seeds missing, and a tiny person sitting on top in a tired posture. These are silhouetted in front of a pink sunset or sunrise.

Hiatus How To: When, how & why to take a break from NSFW Twitter

Published by mightytinygiant on September 18, 2022

(CW for discussion of mental health, depression, addiction, abuse, trauma, and anxiety.)

Topics in this article

 

To go on hiatus is to take a break, or to pause something that has been ongoing.

The first time I went on hiatus in an online kink community, I had a full-on hot mess breakdown. I didn’t know what “hiatus” even meant. I was terrified it would be forever, and I didn’t even know how to reassure myself, let alone the people around me. It was 2016 and I was still new to size kink as a shared experience instead of a shameful secret. I’ve come a long way. I’ve made mistakes and learned a lot. That seems worth sharing.

What this won’t be:

This won’t be an official guide. It won’t be an argument for or against leaving a community temporarily or forever, because only you can know what you need. I won’t talk about what it’s like to go on hiatus when you depend on NSFW Twitter to make money from art, writing, or sex work, because I don’t have personal experience with that yet. (If anyone does, and wants to share some advice, I’ll gladly consider quoting you!)

I also won’t pretend to understand you, your situation, or how you feel about your body or mental health. Some of my advice will be a good fit for you, and some of it you can leave. I’m not a mental health professional, and strongly recommend you consider talking with a counselor or therapist if you even halfway think you might want to try that. (Jump to the end for a list of kink-friendly therapy databases where you can look for sliding-scale and low-cost options.)

What this will be:

Hopefully, this will be a useful collection of my thoughts on my own hiatus process that I’ve developed after years of trial and error and watching friends go through the same. Some come back to the community and some don’t. Some hiatuses are scary. Some are a huge relief.

I’m writing this to you, and to the person I was during my first panicked hiatus. And to the less-than-supportive friend I have been to others going on hiatus. I’ll draw from examples in the size kink / #SizeTwitter community, but I think much of this will be relevant to NSFW Twitter or other online kink spaces in general.

I’m writing to share some questions that you might not have considered, and to point you towards some resources, and to just show that it’s okay to need a break—even from something you love.

Continue readingHiatus How To: When, how & why to take a break from NSFW Twitter