My dear friend Emily is in a bit of a tight squeeze and is selling some beautiful designs [including Dreamies and other CS] to get by!

If you have a moment to spare, please give her post a look!

https://toyhou.se/~bulletins/1706398.emergency-sales

I've REALLY lost track of all offers and PMs relating to my Trade/Sale thread, so I'm just gonna make a Bulletin for this specific thing!

Sale/Trade Folder 

I'd like to go ahead and clear out some of these designs, so I'm opening up for art offers on any design not currently pending!

The characters I'd most like art of right now are:
     ▹My Milqilin [very soft, cute art styles for them would be preferred!]
     ▹Any of my characters designed by socky-the-devi

Please REPLY HERE with your offer, so I don't lose them and totally forget to respond! /;<; I'd appreciate it if you include links to examples of your artwork, and specifics regarding what type of piece/how many pieces you're offering for what design!

Since Gravehaunter has me blocked on any platform where this is being discussed, and since I have no intentions of removing my OWN blocks even though I have been receiving screencaps of what she's saying about Emily, I thought that I might as well toss in a comment here. To the general TH user, this entire situation that Gravehaunter is presenting in her PSA should be obvious for what it is: personal beef. Personal beef between people who just don't get along personally is not the sort of thing that anybody really ought to be writing full-scale PSA bulletins about. However, since Gravehaunter has forced the discussion into the public domain, I'm going to speak to that personal beef.

I ended a 7 years long RL friendship with Gravehaunter in early 2019. I ended a friendship which had become increasingly frought with emotional manipulation and pot-stirring in pursuit of creating drama, because Gravehaunter would not stop using group Discord servers to speak ill of my friend, Emily. From the moment that my then-new friend Emily became interested in Esprits, and in particular after I resold a recently acquired Esprit to her in January of 2018, Gravehaunter made it very clear that she simply did not like her. She continuously assumed the worst intentions behind every interaction that she had with Emily. Whether it was a friendly comment on TH or a Note inquiring about Esprit lore and inter-personal plotting, or Emily making an offer on an Esprit that Gravehaunter herself was attempting to acquire, she consistently declared that Emily was 'being fake-nice,' or 'sniping designs,' or other such baseless and inflammatory assumptions about her motives and character. It wasn't long before Emily stopped trying to engage with Gravehaunter, sensing her hostility and giving her appropriate breadth as a fellow Esprit CS enthusiast. When Emily opened up for trade and resale offers on a custom Esprit that she had purchased from Gravehaunter, she decided that she wanted to give preference to an FTO or someone who was new to the species. Gravehaunter took the fact that she declined the offer to trade the design to her as a personal slight, as she has herself made clear in her PSA. When Astronym opened up for custom Esprit design sales, Emily AB'd two of the three slots. As you can see in the comment left on her post, Gravehaunter also took this to be a personal slight. In group and private Discord servers, Gravehaunter continuously described Emily as a two-faced manipulator and a 'bitch' to anybody who would listen.

At the time all of this was happening, I chalked all of these bad faith assumptions and insults up to a combination of Gravehaunter's tendency towards paranoid readings of the actions of others, and jealousy over my growing friendship with Emily. I told Gravehaunter repeatedly that, while she was allowed to dislike my friends if she wanted to, she was NOT welcome to talk shit about them while I was in the proverbial room, or to lie about the quality of their character. Because Gravehaunter did not stop, I left a private group chat that we shared on Discord at the time. Since this was a beef between friends and not anything that would qualify as a 'criminal offense' within the realm of the adoptables community, I did not save receipts. Who saves receipts documenting the disintegration of a friendship?

Fast forward to early 2019, when Roxy stages a public 'callout' within the Esprit general channel regarding my personal decision not to tag my non-cis-but-also-non-human characters as 'trans' or 'intersex.' I felt that tagging 4-armed, 4/6-breasted forest creatures as 'intersex,' even if that is the term used within the lore of their own species, was inappropriate considering the fact that intersex individuals are real people with a very separate human experience. Between Gravehaunter and two of her friends, whom she had already turned against me, the Esprit general server conversation quickly became a tirade of accusations that I was at best besmirching Esprit canon lore, and at worst, transphobic. At this time, I left the Esprit group server and ended my friendship with Gravehaunter for good. During our final conversation, she made it clear that she thought we were already no longer friends because 'I chose Emily over her.'

I wanted to end this friendship and just move on with my life, but ending a friendship with Gravehaunter comes with steep consequences. First, her partner CJ - with whom I co-owned the Gemsun CS at the time - booted me from my position as a moderator over a CS that I had half-paid ownership stakes in. CJ came up with a short list of reasons why they were removing my moderator status, most of which boiled down to a lack of mutual communication that had been ongoing due to my decision to end the friendship with Gravehaunter. I accepted the loss of Mod status because, frankly, I didn't want to have even tangential contact with Gravehaunter [I did, however, retain designer rights, which I possess to this day].

Then, Astronym gifted the Esprit CS to Gravehaunter, and within two days of seizing ownership, Gravehaunter noted both Emily and I to [gleefully] inform us that we were now permanently Blacklisted from owning ANY Esprits, even those designed by Astronym and sold only under the terms of HER ownership and TOS. I accepted this depsite personally feeling that it was unfair, because again, I had no desire to have even tangential contact with Gravehaunter.

To me, Gravehaunter's PSA smacks of a desperation to remain relevant in the lives of people who have simply chosen not to know her, and to move on with our lives. This is personal beef, unworthy of the PSA forum.

Hey everyone! So, I have 12 designs in my coffers here that I'd like to GIVE AWAY FOR FREE to some loving new homes this holiday season! However, I'm not really interested in diving into the Forums, purely because I feel like I'd just be DROWNED in replies? So I've decided to run it here in a Bulletin, rather than anywhere more widely advertised. The GOOD THING ABOUT THAT is that you'll probably have WAY less competition for designs, so you can feel more confident in trying for them!

RULES:

• Leave a COMMENT on the profile of the character you're trying for explaining WHAT YOUR PLANS ARE FOR THE DESIGN - I wanna see these kids being put to good use, after all! ♥
• You're welcome to leave comments on multiple designs! However, the MAXIMUM that you may receive is 3, so keep this in mind when writing up your comments!
• Entries will close and designs will be given away on SUNDAY, DECEMBER 29th!

THE DESIGNS:

• [CS] Diety-Tier MOONBUN
• [CS] Common FLOATSUNE
• [CS] Common INNOCENS [discontinued CS - can easily function as a satyr]
• Umbral-Wind Amphibious Humanoid
• cindyjeans Vibrant Anthro
• SugarSpike Holo-Aesthetic Humanoid
• DearHunters Demon Humanoid
• Weeabakuras Dragon Humanoid
• Zeda Dystopian-Punk Human
• Zeda Fennec Anthro
• Zeda Flat-Faced Bat Anthro
• Zeda Pit Bull Anthro

Good luck with your entries!

I like doing memes sometimes :U

1. what’s your gender? 
Cis Female

2. what are your pronouns?
She/her

3. is your family accepting?
What makes me part of the LGBT community is that I'm a Panromantic Asexual. My mom is accepting and has done her best to educate herself on asexuality [watching documentaries, reading articles, and talking to me about it], but I get the typical reactions from anybody else in my family when they find out. A couple of my aunts have spoken in hushed tones to my mother about how 'she should just try it, it's not THAT bad' or 'she should know that she HAS to have sex or she'll be alone forever,' stuff like that. My surviving brother, despite having homophobic tendencies, seems to have adopted a 'don't ask, don't tell' relationship with me, since he still loves me and wants to get along with me [incidentally, I think he just thinks I must be a lesbian who doesn't talk about my dating/sex life?? IDK what he thinks really]. Ultimately, it's hard to think of even lacking hostility from family as 'acceptance' so much as 'they're not bothered because they don't think it's real & they're just waiting for me to turn normal someday.'

4. what do you wish you could tell your past self?
Devote more time to creating your own narratives! RPing is fun, sure, but FOR GOD'S SAKE JUST MAKE YOUR OWN STORIES!!! [this has very little to do with sexuality, I've just had a LOT of experience with RP being used as a tool to keep me complacent with abuse]

5. what is your sexuality?
Asexual.

6. favorite color?
I love ALL kinds of colours, but Cyan/Pool Blue, Fuchsia and Yellow will always be a Number 1 Colour Combo

7. sun gay or moon gay?
I can't use the term 'gay' for myself because it doesn't apply to me, but I'm all 'bout that Sun my dude. MUTABLE FIRE SIGN, GOLD AND WARM TONES, yiss

8. when did you find out your sexuality?
I had the benefit of being in art schools from 4th grade on through college, and IMO I think that being open to experiencing and channeling your own creativity through the arts often leads to a greater depth of self-analysis, and therefore a process of self discovery that begins at a younger age for a lotta art kids. Because of that, from middle school onward, a lot of my classmates were awakening to and exploring their sexualities and gender identities. I wasn't ever interested in anything but my school work and art, and when my classmates hormones started to REALLY kick in [people going 'boy crazy' or stuff like that], I slowly became aware of the fact that I wasn't experiencing the things that 'normal' kids my age were. I only 'liked' people in the loosest, 'yeah they're aesthetically pleasing to the eye' sense, and the very concept of personally engaging in sexual contact with another human being was totally appalling to me. People tended to tell me that I was just a prude or a 'late bloomer,' but that wasn't so - I certainly enjoyed fictional romance and sexual content [I discovered BL in middle school, and I was definitely reading doujinshi and RPing NSFW stuff with friends by the time I was a Freshman], so it wasn't that I was afraid of or repulsed by it. I just did not have a personal interest. Luckily, I had enough friends that were dealing with coming to terms with their own queer identities to know that 'not-normal' was actually totally normal, so I didn't stress about it much. I think I was only in my sophomore year in HS when I saw a button that said 'asexuality - it's not just for amoebas' among a selection of LGBTQA+ stuff that my classmates were assembling for a Pride event, looked it up, and voila. I learned that there was a term for what I was, and continued to be Unbothered. The 'being bothered by it' thing only started to come up for me in college, when I began to feel more and more isolated from the ability to explore any romantic interest in other people. It seemed as though for 'normal' people, sex was generally expected and demanded as part of a romantic relationship, or else you weren't really romantically involved.

9. how was your day?
Pretty good! I'm waiting for the Blood Tide to begin and I'm just feeling anemic and bloated until it does. =<=

10. do you have any gay friends?
I think that I have like.... maybe 5 straight friends, tops? Almost everyone that I'm friends with is somewhere under the LGBTQA+ umbrella- you meet and collect like water droplets with your own.

11. what’s your favorite hobby?
I haven't got ANY idea what to say here. I do art, but that's not just a hobby for me. I like customizing dolls, but I haven't done a new one in like 2 years I think. Maybe I should say 'sleeping?'

12. who’s the best gay icon in your opinion?
I've never been big into the idea of having icons or idols. Human beings are, at all times, fallible.

13. which pride flags do you like the most design/color wise?
Pansexuals have the BEST flag colours. =<= I'm panromantic, but I don't feel like I can even sort-of take that flag as one of my own. The pan flag is just SO GOOD- way prettier than the Ace flag, no matter how much I try to console myself by saying 'at least I could theoretically dress hella goth for Pride'

14. are you openly out?
Yeah. I don't tend to list things about my identity in my sidebars anywhere, but it's no secret that I'm asexual.
 
15. are you comfortable with yourself?
Yeah. I know exactly what I am, and I HAVE known for years. It complicates my ability to pursue romantic fulfillment in a way that can at times cut really, really deep, and it isolates me from both the LGBT community and our cisheteronormative society. But, it's what I am.

16. bottom or top?
These things don't exist except in 90's yaoi manga and 1-on-1 RPs with partners who can't play a character that ISN'T a raging bottom, so you have to do all of the sexy legwork writing for your legion of tops.

17. femme or butch?
I present pretty androgynously? I admire a LOT of pretty skirts and dresses but I think I wear 1 skirt or dress a year, ever. Pants, short hair and goth/punk teenage boy looks are my jam.

18. do you bind?
For cosplay only- I have a 30" ribcage, which is like a NIGHTMARISHLY FRAGILE LITTLE BIRD EGG, and I've popped a rib ligament once from coughing too much.

19. do you shave?
My legs, my armpits and my arms, yeah. I don't like the sensation of having body hair rubbing under my clothes, so for me it's a personal thing. =<= I actually use a Drysol antiperspirant treatment that requires me not to shave whenever I'm treating, though, so I frequently grow that hair out waaay more than I actually like.

20. if you could date anyone you wanted, who would it be?
There are a few friends of mine who are Asexual and/or on the Grey-Ace spectrum. /;<; I get along with them SO WELL and they're so talented and beautiful and uplifting to be near, I sometimes really wish that I felt a romantic draw to any one of them, or that they felt a draw to ME. But like- I know what it feels like to be romantically in-love with someone, and I know that I can't just turn on that emotion and aim it at people who I'm intellectually aware will mesh with me well. In the broad sense, I guess that what I want in a person LOOKS wise matters less to me [though I have a marked aesthetic preference for people my height or shorter, with dark hair] than the quality of the person's character and their creativity.

21. do you have a partner (s)?
No

22. describe your partner (s)?
N/A

23. have you ever dated anyone of the same gender?
Yes- my first romantic relationship was with a girl named Laura. /;<; She was SUPER, SUPER CUTE and really spirited and funny, and after being friends with her for I think a year, we confessed a mutual interest before National Coming Out Day [10/10/10], and for that moment everything felt like it crystallized perfectly. However, problems that would eventually lead to our breakup started right away. First, she was only selectively out as a lesbian and dealing with a lot of strong opposition to her sexuality at home. So, for the first 3 months of our 6 month relationship, I wasn't allowed to refer to her as my girlfriend, and even after we 'became official' in some social circles, other people seemed to think of me [since I was a little older] as either some foul seductress who was at fault for Laura being gay, or [if they knew I was ace] as not REALLY dating her, forcing her into celibacy, unhealthy for her, etc. Her mom was of the former persuasion - the lady LOVED ME TO PIECES and constantly told me what a good influence I was... until we started dating, and then suddenly I was awful. Laura and I made plans to spend spring break together, but my Dad [who had long been battling stage 4 melanoma] died that spring on Easter Sunday, so she went back home early and I went home to grieve. Ultimately, I felt like Laura was forcing herself to remain celibate for a long-distance girlfriend who would NEVER put out and was now going to be an unfun burden, grieving for her father and all that shit. So, I broke up with her, and we parted ways amicably.

24. anyone of another gender?
Yes - my second romantic relationship was with a transman named Sam. I was still going through the grieving process with my father when we met, and my high-functioning depression meant that I was at once sociable enough to be widely-liked and charming in social environments like conventions, and too tired and listless to tell people 'no' when they started to demand unhealthy access to and power over me. He ended up steadily isolating me from the rest of my social circle and monopolizing my time through intense and unrelenting RP and Skype conversations. Every moment that I wasn't either asleep or at work, I was expected to be on Skype and talking to Sam. At the time, I was living alone in an apartment in Charleston, so I would go long stretches [months, it felt like] without getting to see or spend time with any of my friends for more than an afternoon running errands together, or a quick pop-in at a birthday party that I was guilted via text for even attending. IN SHORT- Sam isolated and abused me, and when we eventually entered into the 'dating' leg of our relationship [which I'm STILL putting quotation marks around thanks to the gaslighting that I'll have to describe later], it was made clear to me that as an asexual, I alone was never going to be enough for him. He forced me to accept the terms of an open relationship, told me only to refer to him as his boyfriend if someone else tried to ask me out, and essentially treated me like his 'stay-at-home wife' whenever we were physically together. One minute he'd snap at me if I did polite or gently affectionate things like get the door for him or hold his hand, and the next he would lean on me to be petted and tell me that he loved me more than anybody else in his life. Eventually, he slept with one of only two 'friends' that I was still allowed to talk to [because he was interested in her, as it turns out], and when I confronted him with the fact that I wasn't cool with it, he said 'we were never really dating.' Because I'm ace, y'know.

It took me some months after that to work up the emotional and psychological strength to finally cut him out of my life once and for all, and altogether it took two years of therapy to drag myself out of the dark place he'd pushed me into. My thyroid ended up shutting down from the traumatic stress of the experience, so now I'm on lifelong medication for that, but I'm still alive- and while it probably need not be stated, I'm still a staunchly supportive trans-ally. Sam's a piece of shit cause he's a piece of shit, and his shittiness in NO way reflects on anyone who identifies themselves as transgender.

25. pastel gay or goth gay?
p a s t e l ☆ g o t h

26. favorite dad in dream daddies?
Mat and Craig are the hottest, Joseph/Robert is a fucked up and compelling trainwreck of a ship, and Mary is the one I wanna marry.

27. tell me a random fact about yourself?
I enjoy customizing 1:6 scale dolls and I wanna make all of my OCs into dolls and figurines. That's been a dream of mine since I was a child, never to be FULLY realized but always held close to my heart.

28. do you own any pride flags/merch?
I have a heart-shaped, heavy-duty Asexual enamel charm on my keyring, and I still have that 'asexuality - not just for amoebas' pin. But being asexual, I have a kind of complicated relationship with Pride month, and Pride events in general. It's still outrageously common for the rest of the LGBTQA+ community to exclude Asexuals, or to tell me that I'm only welcome in their spaces because I happen to be panromantic and therefore 'gay enough.' Pride stuff is always nice to see, out and about, but like... I'm not welcome there. It's like being in the same classroom, knowing that you're friends with a whole social group and that you're one of them, but they very deliberately never invite you to their birthday parties, cause you're 'not REALLY one of them.' But then there you are, shunned and excluded by the REST of your classmates because you're not normal enough for them to consider you one of them, either. Too unusual to be cishet, not unusual enough to be LGBT.

29. have you ever been to a pride parade?
I haven't yet been brave enough to go. I always want to go with an asexual friend, someone who will be there with me and understand and accept me on a personal level, just in case the stuff that I see in documentaries and clips online [where other members of the Alphabet Soup at Pride turn towards the asexuals and say 'I feel sorry for you' or 'go home'] happens to us. But, I haven't yet had a pride event happen where one or both or all of my ace friends in the area weren't scheduled to work, and even my most well-meaning pansexual and gay friends are just. Not the only people I want to be there with, y'know?

30. any advice to someone who isn’t out or who are exploring themselves?
I know that labels can provide you with a sense of comfort, knowing that you're not alone in your particular experience of gender or sexuality. But I think that, especially if you're young, it can sometimes be best to keep an open mind and continue exploring yourself until a label settles in and feels right, rather than rushing to find some kind, ANY kind, of label. I've had plenty of friends who initially identified as gay end up struggling later on, when they discover instead that they're transgender or pansexual or any OTHER orientation in conflict with the initial label. After they'd already gone through the heartache and struggle of coming out as Thing 1, they were made to feel like their initial understanding of their identity was at BEST a self-delusion, and at WORST an intentional deception of the people around them when they found that Thing 2 was a more appropriate label. If you can help it, avoiding hard labels - or even just remaining open to the idea of continuing to explore your own identity, and sharing that exploration with those you trust - can help you to continue that process of self discovery with less shame, self-doubt and tension going forward. That's just what I think, y'know-

Aaaaand that's it!