Picklejuice

Everyone is panicking over TOS-es right now as they find a new home as Tumblr gets flushed down the toilet. I don’t like those random TOS breakdowns because the analysis is always wrong. 

Anyway this is what people pay me to do and I will now do it for $0 because I’m tired of everyone spreading misinformation. This post is not a substitute for legal advice etc. Reblogs are appreciated because I literally see TOS nonsense on my dash every day. 

Any more experienced copyright lawyers please feel free to weigh in - it’s part of my field yes, but my wheelhouse is more film production COT rather than derivative works.

Google Drive (TOS)

Google doesn’t have rights to do whatever they want to files you upload to Google Drive

Their TOSes are annoyingly broad in drafting but essentially boilerplate clauses that they need to host your work, use google translate on it, make it searchable etc. They cannot steal your fanfic. They cannot modify your art and use it for whatever.

Your work MAY be threatened (that is, deleted) thanks to FOSTA/SESTA, which imo is a clown provision signed by a clown that sent safe harbour down the toilet. This and this has more information (I’ve skimmed but not perused both), but the tl;dr is: similar to Tumblr, there was a ham-fisted attempt to protect victims of sex trafficking and all it really did was make cloud based services start deleting user files whether relevant or not. 

deviantART (Submission Policy) (TOS)

Uploading work to dA doesn’t give them a license to sell it to Hot Topic. This post is incorrect. Debunked here and corrected by the artist himself here. Your art is safe. 

There’s a breakdown of the TOS in there that’s pretty much wrong on most points, if someone wants me to do a not-wrong version, ask. This may help.

All you really need to know is that like Google, I checked it over and nothing in there puts you at risk for dA asserting ownership over your work or selling it - they need those rights for thumbnails, search functions, resizing etc. 

Sexually explicit fanart is not allowed, as well as “obscenity”, which is an oddly broad term covering things like “sexually orientated commercial telephone messages”. 

I’m not aware of any content purges.

AO3 (TOS)

Yum. I like this one. Easy to read and clearly explained for most people with basic reading comprehension. Section G - What We Do With Content will tell you everything you need to know.

Basically, they have the same clauses about you granting AO3 a license to modify/apart/etc you work, but they take the trouble to explain to you exactly what that means, and how they use it to improve accessibility etc. 

No history of content purges as far as I know. Explicit content is allowed with limits eg. no child porn. 

Wordpress (TOS)

Same deal - you’re looking for 1. Wordpress - Responsibility of Contributors, with the exact same thing as everybody else. They also do a decent job of explaining what they use the license for (though once again, it’s standard), albeit not as beautifully as AO3. 

However, images of sexual acts (including fanart) are against TOS.

I found no history of content purges.

Dreamwidth (TOS)

Same old standard licensing clause, again doesn’t let them steal your stuff.

Incredibly…open content policies…you can basically do whatever you want so long as you don’t break laws or commit fraud it seems? If I’m wrong, feel free to correct.

I really don’t draw myself turning into Penny that often.

Should fix that.

This incredibly self-indulgent piece of TF/TG art of myself into Twilight Sparkle was done over the course of several days. I initially drew the last step because I wanted to draw Twilight wearing some comfortable PJs. After liking how it turned out, I intended on make it a three step sequence. That eventually grew into a four step sequence, then finally five.

I had a lot of trouble finishing this, mostly because I was really particular with how each step progressed. Even now, it’s still not quite where I’d like it to be, but I’m pretty happy with where it is now. Maybe in the future I’ll properly ink and color it, because I really like how it came out.

My friend Phobos even went and wrote an epistolary format short story to accompany each step! Check out his work, its fantastic stuff, and thanks to him for taking the time to write it in the first place!

Day One:

It’s not exactly my style. The more I look at this outfit the more I realize that they’re obviously women’s clothes. To be honest I’m not even sure why I bought them in the first place, or if I even bought them at all. They just kind of showed up in an Amazon package today. Probably just forgot I ordered something is all…

I can’t stop tugging and pulling at them, especially the top. In all honesty I should probably just take it all off and put on something more comfortable but… I don’t know, I just kind of don’t want to. Maybe I’m actually into cross-dressing and just never really knew it before now. That or I’m too lazy to actually be bothered to get up and change. Either are pretty likely. Oh well!

Day Two:

Holy shit.

I woke up this morning and I felt weird. At first I assumed it was just waking up wearing such tight women’s clothing, but that theory went out the window fast. What really feels weird are my boobs. My fucking boobs. They’re not massive, but these are not male breasts. They’re too soft, too tender, too… well, too booby. Just touching them sends shivers down my body, but at the same time it’s so hard to ignore them.

My face is looking a little off too. My nose especially seems to be growing, I can see it clearly from my peripheral vision even when I’m not looking down. And there’s that little nub on top of my head. I want to call it a horn, but it’s more of a lump than a horn so far. It doesn’t really have any feeling to it. It just feels kind of numb when I rub it. Still pretty wild though. I might want to go see a doctor, but at the same time this wouldn’t be the easiest thing to explain.

Between the breasts, my face nub, and the whole mysterious package, I’m starting to wonder if this is a fantasy come to life. Like, what are the odds a mysterious outfit I found gives me breasts and a very horn-like nub? Either something is playing to my interests, or I’m going insane. Or both. Probably both.

Day Three:

If this is going crazy, then screw being sane. It’s obvious that I’m becoming a pony, there’s no denying it. My nub has grown out into a proper horn now. If I focus really hard on it shimmering sparks shoot from its tip. It’s like playing with a lighter, flicking it on and off and watching the light that follows.

I’ve got a tail too, the colors are a fairly familiar purple on pink combo. My hair is shifting to that color too, Twilight’s mane color. Whoever did this knows their stuff about me, and as potentially creepy the implications, I’m too busy exploring to really fret about it too much. I’ve been testing out the muscles that swish my tail and flap my probably mostly vestigial wings, just really exploring everything there is to explore. And I do mean everything.

I haven’t taken off the top and shorts, I’ve been too scared it might stop these changes. But once I finally work up the nerve to remove them, they’re going to need a good washing. The shorts especially, they’re getting pretty wet. Sure, I could stop them from getting wet, but there’s no way in hell I’m stopping. Earlier today I was just pushing my member down, feeling it shrink and recede into me. But now I’m tickling and caressing the folds of my vagina. That’s so weird to think about. My vagina. Has a nice ring to it…

Day Four:

I. Am. Fucking. Adorable.

I can’t stop staring at myself. I hate to sound vain but there’s nothing I’d rather look at. I keep moving around and posing, watching my reflection put on a show just for me. I love it, I love every second of it. The sound of my bubbly, Tara Strong based voice fills the room as I giggle and squeal in delight.

Despite stuff like ‘reality’ and ‘common sense’: I have become Twilight Sparkle. From my soft purple fur, to my magically charged horn, to my tail, to my wings, every inch of my body is Twilight’s. Despite being in a body so foreign, I’ve never felt more at home in my body skin. It’s who I am, who I want to be, who I was meant to be.

And, as a bit of a bonus, the outfit is a perfect fit now! It clings to my womanly form in as flattering a manner as you could imagine. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect me to work out in, or just lounge around the house in. It’s perfect casual wear. Although, now that this is all over, I should probably go and wash it. And myself. If I’m going to go show off the new me, I don’t want to smell funny when I do!

Day One Hundred Seventy-Two:

Life is going good for little old me! Turns out the world is surprisingly receptive to a magical princess horse suddenly existing in the world. I get a lot of glances and lingering looks, but they’re more in admiration than judging or concern. I really do hate being vain, but I cannot blame them for any of the looks. They just simply have good taste!

I’m living up to my role as Twilight. My social sphere is growing pretty rapidly, it feels weird to instagram about what I’m eating or just my random day to day life, but friends and admirers alike eat that stuff up! I’m also partying a lot more, it’s a great way to meet new people. And beyond the more gregarious side, I’m also getting kind of into biochemistry! It’s a weird thing to have as a hobby, but I can’t help that it’s interesting.

This is a question I get asked fairly frequently and that we’ve discussed a lot over several podcast eps, so I’ll condense this to list of suggestions for folks who are trying to deal with the intersection of relationships and TF:

1) make connections within the general kink community. Folks who are active or aware of /participating in kink spaces are more likely to be able to have conversations around what kinks they have and what kinks you have. It’s relatively common practice not to be judgy about another person’s kink even if you don’t share it. There’s plenty of TF adjacent kinks that are fairly popular (Ex. puppy play) so nothing about TF should seem too beyond the pale to someone with kink experience.

2) if you’re in a relationship already, you can still try to establish a vibe of being open and honest about sex stuff. This is so valuable for way more things than TF - making a place for your partner to be honest about their fantasies, kinks, the kind of sex they want, etc. is foundational to having a healthy sex life within a relationship. Model how you would like to be able to talk about your stuff by how you listen to your partner discuss theirs. Try to incorporate what you’ve learned from those convos to make them happy. This is very basic but a lot of relationships are completely missing this element.

Porn is a great tool for this - once you’ve had some foundational convos, try sharing porn with each other. Sometimes you can get a lot of info from your partner just being like ‘‘hey, uh, here’s a hot thing”. The real goal is to be able to talk about why that thing is hot without fear of judgement.

3) [2, but louder] Make a commitment to be honest with partners about your kink. You should not have to spend your life with someone who thinks you are the worst because you like werewolf porn or w/e. Do not!! assume that they will hate you because of the werewolf porn!! and live your life never telling them and secretly resenting them!!

4) Like 50% of furries* are into TF. The furry community is a good place to make friends and talk about kink. Both of my partners are furries. I’m not telling you to buy a fursuit … I’m just putting this out there.

*five years ago I would have said this was an exaggeration, but it’s increasingly not.

5) Try to be sex positive without being a creep. If you want other folks to be chill with your stuff, be chill with theirs (even if it’s not your thing).*

An additional resource I wanted to bring up with folks who are looking for info on how having an unrealizable fetish intersects with relationships is, weirdly, Dan Savage’s columns about vore. Full disclosure, I think Savage is hella problematic for a myriad of reasons (he is… extremely shitty to trans folks), so please take these with a huge grain of salt. That said, these are about as close as it gets to ‘sympathetic’ mainstream covering of niche, unrealizable fetishes.

I listened to his podcast in college (so like… a decade ago, haha) and I remember one ep where he lambasted a caller for being into vore because (and I’m paraphrasing) looking at weird porn on the internet was a waste of time and the guy should’ve been out having ‘‘real” sex. It was a huge bummer, but on the following episode a woman called in and politely and thoroughly laid into him and explained how she would go about IRL play for someone into vore. That was eye opening - I had a moment of being like… oh shit… I could play with TF stuff IRL?!

anyway, here’s some links:

https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=21511425

this has a letter from an 18 year old girl who’s only ever been into vore, asking for advice. Good takeaways: her boyfriend is cool with it, and he wants to play around with it for her sake. I think this does a decent job explaining the having sex while thinking about fetish fantasy stuff angle that serves a lot of folks with unrealizable fetishes decently. Two things I wish he would have suggested: dirty talk and jerking off together.

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2016/11/16/24695614/savage-love-letter-of-the-day-boyfriend-on-the-menu

Walkabout Halloween special

Here are a couple Halloween themed strips for your enjoyment :)