Year In Review 2021

Content notes and warnings: I do have a picture or two of my doll collection in here, so if you have a doll phobia, skip past the pictures. Also the usual mentions of impact, gender stuff, CGL, and other topics I wrote about this year.

2021 has been, well. Not great. We’re not gonna get into it. But here we are, I guess!

Even in the midst of a fairly depressing year, there have been some awesome things! I became really good friends with several other bloggers and joined the Alliance of Independent Sex Toy Testers. I figured out that I’m nonbinary and demisexual, and wrote a fair amount about gender and the ace spectrum (and started going by Ollie). I had some erotica produced as audio porn by the incomparable Girl on the Net, and I wrote two articles for SheVibe, one about spanking and one about non-impact sensory play.

(Also, on a non-professional note, I took up embroidery, built a dollhouse, and expanded my beloved doll collection, all of which I’m very happy about! Please enjoy my hobby photos throughout the post.)

[Image description: Two embroidery hoops, one with a finished, rustic floral snail, and one with an unfinished flogger and the words “yes sir” written in (badly smudged) water-soluble marker.]

My most popular post this year continued to be My Nonsexual Submission, one of my earliest posts. My most popular post that was published this year was Collage Dildo: Too Good To Be True, in which I show the experiments other bloggers and I did on the Collage dildo by Icon Brands, showing that it’s not body safe and also…weird.

I also want to give a huge shout-out to Daltoneering on Ao3, who wrote a beautiful fanfic for The Untamed called Rainfall and cited some of my work (and others) at the end, which brought me a lot of traffic. I’ve never watched The Untamed, but I read it and I loved it anyway (and actually cried) and recommend it!

My Favorite Reviews for 2021

Love Hamma G-Spot Vibrator. This toy was weird and even if it wasn’t one of my favorite toys ever, it was a really fun review to write.

The Tentickle Woodsman. I liked working with the designer very much, and commissioning my spouse for the Darth Maul art was great! I was also amused by how many people came out of the woodwork on social media to inform me that they would absolutely fuck Darth Maul.

My Favorite Non-Reviews for 2021

Moments From Earth: Croc-Worship. This was a love letter to my spouse, written after getting very tired of people hating Crocs online. It was partly started as a joke but, as with so many things, wound up becoming alarmingly sincere. It also won me a placement on Molly’s Daily Kiss’s Top Sex Blogs 2021 Category Awards, at second place for nonfiction.

Little Activities (That Aren’t Coloring). I wrote a fair amount of CGL content this year, partly because I spent a lot of time being little to cope with stuff. This post was not only hopefully of help to others, but of help to me when I wanted to do little stuff but couldn’t remember what I enjoyed doing.

[Image description: A one-room dollhouse cottage, with a pink cat doll sitting on the couch. For a full overview of the house, its contents, and how we made nearly everything out of recycled materials and craft stash, check out my Tumblr post about it.]

My Favorite Erotica Posts for 2021

The Forest God. It’s an atmospheric piece of fiction with erotic elements, and one I was very heavily immersed in as I wrote it. It’s a longer story, and may not have a ton of mainstream porny appeal (is that not the story of my blog, though?), but I’m very proud of it as a work of fiction.

Respecting Xeir Things. I wanted to practice using neopronouns without making it gimmicky, and this is possibly the fluffiest, most realistic erotica I’ve ever produced. I might end up writing more about Laurel and Jax…

My Favorite New (To Me) Product of 2021

Three Uberrime Dildos. These are excellent toys, ones that I use in regular rotation still, and I enjoyed working with Marco. They’re also just absolutely beautiful works of art!

Sportsheets Ball Crop, discussed in detail in My Favorite Impact Toys. This didn’t get a dedicated review, but it’s come up a few times in other posts and it’s honestly one of the best things to happen to me this year!

My Least Favorite New (To Me) Product of 2021

CalExotics Slay Thrill Me. You’d think it would have been the peeling Collage dildo, but this toy was so bad and boring that I actually completely forgot I wrote this review until I was looking for things to include here. That’s, uh, not a good sign.

We-Vibe Tango X. After years and years of hearing how much better than everything the Tango was, I found this toy a bit of a let-down. It just doesn’t really work with my anatomy and how I prefer to use toys, apparently!

What’s In Store For Next Year?

Honestly? I should just put a giant shrug emoji here. I may move away from reviews a bit and work more on guides and stories. I may also put my review focus more on kink toys where applicable. We shall see, won’t we?

Thank you as always for reading my blog and for supporting me! I hope you have a wonderful new year and find all the joys, big and small, that you can.