#Gaining perspectives

[mindgambit]

How networking can boost your confidence and propel your career forward

Networking is often seen as the key to professional success. But did you know that it can also play a significant role in boosting your confidence? In this article, we’ll explore how building professional connections not only opens doors but can also positively influence your self-perception. 1. Seek validation from like-minded individualsWhen you share your ideas and successes with others and…

[soft5ku11]

Um hey what the fuck you guys i said DON'T-

(Alt version on my bluesky account ;) )

[growmydarling]

[valgodd]

You lie in our bed and watch me struggle to button my pants.

”Damn” I mutter under my breath, trying to force the button into the loop.

”Whats wrong babe” you say innocently.

”They just wont close” I say exasperated.

You quietly enjoy the show for a while beforing rising to your feet.

”Here, let me help you darling…”

”Absolutely not” I push you away.

”Dont be silly love. You obviously need a little help with those”

I sigh. 

”Okay. Fine” 

You come up behind me. Your hands linger for a while on my protrouding belly.

”Poor baby” you whisper in my ear, your lips touching my earlobe. ”Did you gain s little weight?” I grunt in response. ”Mhm… Okay love… I need you to suck it in. Can you do that for me babe? Okay…here we go…”

”Godness me” I huff, looking at my swollen reflection in the mirror as you try to do my pants. ”well i think my love for your cooking is starting to show”

After a few attempts, the button gets in the loop. You squeeze my muffin top that is spilling over the waistband.

”There you go. Can you sit down im them?”

I carefully sit down on the edge of the bed, the button creaking.

”Its digging in a bit but its-”

With a snap the button pops off and lands on the floor. My belly oozes out.

”Oh shoot. I-I think I could stand to loose a couple of pounds”

You sit down beside me, one arm over my shoulder, the other one rubbing my belly in comforting circles.

”Dont be so hard on yourself babe. You let go a bit recently, but you can get back into shape in no time. Hey how about some breakfast? I… could make your favourite. The golden pancakes with jam and whipping cream”

I hold back a moan at your suggestion.

”Mm that would be…lovely”

You give my belly a little squeeze.

”Okay love. Just stay here in bed and I’ll soon be back, okay?”

[paddlescuddlesbubblesgurgles]

Full

I can hardly breath. My stomach hurts. I’m so full. I ate too much. I cannot imagine getting up from the couch. My belly weighs me down. I feel so groggy. 

I have to focus on my breathing. I’m so thoroughly beached all I can do is cradle my fat, blubbery gut spread over my lap. It’s dominating my evenings recently. It demands I feed it until I can’t think straight. 

I am sitting upright, in a sluggish daze. I’m too full to lay down comfortably, but so, so exhausted. It’s taking all my energy to just digest all this food, and breathe correctly. Burps keep escaping my lips. Every time I press out more air, I get a momentary relief. I’m so swollen, so bloated, so distended. I’m completely overladen with delicious food. So totally engorged with my failed restraint. 

I keep fantasizing about eating more cookies. Today I added about 32 soft baked cookies of various kinds to my evening feeding. I ate so many I lost count, but some still remain on the table in front of me. But that table is so, so, so far away. 

Leaning forward feels impossible. I still probably couldn’t reach. I just can’t reach past my belly right now. I keep trying to talk myself into moving. Just standing up and getting my cookies. Just a little effort. But I’m too heavy. Much too heavy now.

I keep sipping my drink. I can barely reach it, and it’s running out. I’m thirsty, but I also need to be sure I fill all remaining space. That’s what my belly requires, after all. 

My belly is so warm, and so squishy. It’s like I have a personal pillow attached at all times. A giant, soft, jiggly beanbag just hanging over my waistband, or between my legs, or into sinks. It feels so good when I lift it up and it completely overfills my arms. It spills over my forearms and flops over my hands as I hold the meaty underside. I love bouncing it up and down, and letting it drop. I love how I have a deep, plunging overhang and a thick upper roll beneath my tits. I love how said roll is one of many that are piled up on my sides and connected around to my back. 

My entire torso is covered in a hefty, thick, sagging layer of fat. I’m a butterball, a tub of lard, a fleshy sack of dough. It encases me, buries me, crushes me. It’s no small part of why I’m pinned to this couch. 

I’ve outgrown tape measures, seat belts, booths, and many shirts. All thanks to this gluttonous, greedy, grotesquely overfed gut. It’s in control. I’m just carrying it to its next meal. I’m just making sure the food gets where it needs to go.

It needs to be so much bigger.

[lialox]

Yoohankim all have such different reactions to their other selves.

YJK to YJK: You're annoying. You're a fool. You're not me. (YJK's need to compartmentalize his identity)

HSY to HSY: Ah shit, I did that? (1863rd and 3rd round HSY both accept the other as 'herself')

KDJ to KDJ: You're not real to me. You're just a fleeting dream.

[theactualsunshinechild]

I think Aventio and Screwtio shippers shouldn't fight. After all, Ratio has two hands!

That's right. Two hands.

One for his chalk.

One for his codex.

Both of which he's holding in an embarrassed death grip as they chat away with each other about him.

[imperial-everything]

Pierre Vuala: Gaining perspective.

[messiahzzz]

this informational piece is directed to the gale fandom specifically:

grooming is a tactic where someone methodically builds a trusting relationship with a child or young adult, their family, and community to manipulate, coerce, or force the child or young adult to engage in sexual activities.

1. Choosing a victim - The predator often chooses a child who is obviously vulnerable. Children who are withdrawn, low on confidence, emotionally deprived and with less parental supervision are particularly at risk.

2. Building access & trust - Sexual abuse often begins with friendship. The abuser can also take on other roles such as a romantic partner, a mentor, a caregiver or an authority figure. The abuser spends time in getting to know the victim's likes, dislikes and habits and pretending to share common interests. The perpetrator establishes trust with the child by making them feel special, sometimes through gifts or excessive compliments and attention. This is especially dangerous for vulnerable children who do not experience attention in their daily lives. In the trust development stage, offenders aim to develop a trusting friendship or relationship with their victim. This can involve several tactics, including:

a) praising the child for their maturity and intelligence;

b) encouraging the child to disclose personal information;

c) syncing their language with that of the child;

d) highlighting mutuality (i.e., similar interests, attitudes and behaviors between the offender and child); and finally,

e) portraying themselves as being trustworthy and nice.

3. Filling a need with gifts & favors - Giving the victim small gifts and favours is a strategy used by perpetrators to make the child feel indebted. Trust is further built by sharing intimate life details, going on special outings and giving the child access to things they normally wouldn’t get. Once the offender has identified a child’s needs, they will try to be the “hero” to the child who gives them what they desire. Examples include gifts, extra attention, or affection. This causes the child to see them as highly important and even idolized. They won’t want to upset them in risk of not getting the void in their life fulfilled.

4. Isolating - The groomer actively tries to isolate the child from people who may be watchful or helpful. This kind of isolation creates deeper connection & dependency. The offender also exhibits exemplary behaviour before parents of the victim & manipulates them into trusting the relationship. They will use this trust to create situations in which they are alone with the child. Time spent alone also reinforces the “special connection” the child feels they have with the offender. This “special connection” is further reinforced when the offender convinces the child that they love and appreciate them more than anyone else.

5. Initiating sexual contact - With the power over the child victim established through emotional connection coercion or one of the other tactics, the perpetrator may eventually initiate physical contact with the victim. It may begin with touching that is not overtly sexual (though a predator may find it sexually gratifying) and that may appear to be casual (arm around the shoulder, pat on the knee, etc.). Gradually, the perpetrator may introduce more sexualized touching. By breaking down inhibitions and desensitizing the child, the perpetrator can begin overtly touching the child. At this stage, the offender will exploit a child’s natural curiosity through physical touch and excitement. They will begin to teach the child sexual preferences and manipulate what the child responds to. The child begins to see themselves as a sexual being prematurely and the relationship with the offender now takes on a sexual term.

6. Post-abuse maintenance - The goal of the final stage is to ensure the child remains trapped in the cycle of abuse and loyal to the abuser, by either reinforcing and maintaining trust in order to prevent disclosure, or by explicitly threatening or blackmailing the child or their loved ones. This can also be reinforced and maintained by, for instance, giving the child affection, praise or encouragement for one’s actions.

[whatbigotspost]

Heard a gen x aged character in a movie recently have the ole “everything is TRAUMA to young people these days…how they’d get to SOFT” rant. It reminded me how much I’d rather be the elder who says “y’all don’t seem ok, what’s happening and how can I help?” type over the “act exactly how I expect and let the world harden you instead of softening the world” type.

[ludinusdaleth]

i do not remotely mean this as in insult to the bells, but to me, even before c3 began, i knew it was never going to be a story that would survive on or deserved to be about one party. critical role would have gone stale if it went on much longer as it was, with just its og cast, and you could feel it brimming with understanding of massive events - changes of reality & its own fictional world - on the horizon. i know the concept of a "crossover" story with a staggering number of central characters is inherently risky, but i genuinely think one of c3's biggest strengths is just that.

avalir needed to be presented during c3's runtime, a precursor to past calamity as exandria entered a new one; aeors story needed to be told in this campaign, the apex of mortality's fall in the past as the war for ruidis began to fever pitch in the now; the bells hells needed "guest" stars that truly became their own party members, more than just the og white cast, so many people surviving as nobodies in apocalypse beyond those you expected to take up the call; the crown keepers needed to parralel the bells (hell, they are the bells), infinite parties thrown to slaughter by war when all they wanted was friendship, with hope still deep within them to return to each other; the mighty nein & vox machina & their cohorts needed to push & bear witness to the bells, analyze their own dynamics with power and what it means to be a hero/leader in a time where that isnt clear cut and comes at severe cost not measured in these ways in their campaigns; and most importantly the bells needed - and as of recently chose - to be thrust into being heralds of history. their story was built on heartbreak of being crushed under the boot of other's hero journeys (the story emphasizing that while they got caught in fate, they arent alone in that fate of being "unimportant"), and so it is in the campaigns lifeblood to provide them the chance to look at the tapestry in a way no other can, to bear the tragedy of being the sacrificial lamb and deciding what sacrifices of the world & themselves to make in turn, especially in a campaign that is blatantly asking the question of what is worth it to be in an imperialisically-designed fantasy universe where thousands are not seen as important to the pov of the hero.

[lunar-years]

Can I also say that the worst thing to happen to the roykeeley (and to a smaller extent royjamiekeeley) ship was the episode where Keeley expresses a desire to have like, even TEN Roy-free minutes in her day, which too many people took to mean Keeley (extrovert, social butterfly, move-maker, lover) hates quality time in both concept and execution and only wants to see her significant other on the weekends, maybe, and would probably sleep in a separate room, whereas Roy is a permanently needy fucker who needs to be attached at the hip to his significant other 24/7 in order to survive, and that therefore they are ~Fundamentally Incompatible.~ Instead of what I think the episode was trying to convey, which is that Keeley desires a very extremely normal amount of time to herself especially while she is focusing on Getting Tasks Done/Literally Working Her Job and that Roy had spent the last several months being insanely clingy largely because he was bored and angry and aimless without football and using his girlfriend as his singular purpose for living (which is not sustainable or healthy behavior with ANY partner, even one as equally attached at the hip) only for him to then get a job at the same place Keeley works, so that she could literally never get any time away from him even At Her Job. Thus tipping the scale beyond “Roy’s love language is Quality Time and he can be a bit clingy, which can be reasonably accommodated by a willing partner” to “Roy is Driving Keeley Actually Motherfucking Batshit Crazy” a problem which then gets solved by Roy leaving Keeley alone for the length of one (1) singular self care bath.

[growmydarling]

i want you to swell up so fat and round that you jiggle with every single step 🥰

[valgodd]

Oh to be a butch and come home to my femme feeder housewife doting on me. Having the pillows arranged behind my back and being served heavy, homecooked meals, accompanied with rich desserts. I was such a twig when we first met, now my shirts feel tighter and tighter and I’m sporting the beginning of a double chin. My colleagues at the office tease me, saying that it looks like I have a happy marriage. ”yeah she does take good care of me” I say and pat my rounded belly with a content smile.

She stays as slim and elegant as ever. Only I am growing, getting rounder and rounder from her cooking. I can’t turn down the food she puts in front of me, and she serves me such big helpings.

”If you keep eating like this babe, youre gonna get fat” she teases, as I shovel her home made apple pie with whipped cream into my mouth. I just grunt in response. She giggles and pinches my side playfully.

”Well its hardly my fault you’re spoiling me like this… I’m starting to look as if we’ve been married for decades, and not just a year” I sigh, the buttons of my shirt stretching.

”Mhm… Well you do need someone to spoil you and make sure you eat darling… And I want people to see how well I’m taking care of my husband… I want them to see that I keep you round and wellfed and happy”

You lean down for a kiss, and grab the belly roll that has recently formed just under my boobs.

[lgbtlunaverse]

Life as a JGY stan is so hard because sometimes I want to make posts about the ways his very justified paranoia turns against him sometimes, rare moments where I think being more trusting or vulnerable would have helped but he felt like it couldnt, or talk about how his brutal survival instinct intersects with society's existing bigotries in a such a way that most of his violence is actually aimed at people lower on the ladder than him, with people like Jin Guangshan being the exception not the rule. Because he's a fascinating character and these parts of him are interesting!

But when I do that I have to live in perpetual fear of the moment that it escapes its target audience and someone takes it to go "Yeah he's a monster who fucked over everyone and is incapable of love! I wish he was killed earlier and his death was a thousand times more painful 🤪"

I mean, take my last example. Due to existing hierarchies it is, at any point, easier and safer for jgy to harm people less powerful than him instead of more powerful than him, even if the more powerful are the ones threatening his safety in the first place. Even knowing how it harms him and while working against it, Jin Guangyao is not immune to internalizing the mindset of the world he lives in. Even when killing Jin Guangshan- one man- it ends up costing the lives of 20 sex workers. You think I can bring up the sex workers in this fucking fandom? You think that will go over peacefully? The well has been so thoroughly poisoned here it feels like any conversation around morality automatically turns into a courtroom to determine a sentence for this fictional fucking character who's already dead.

[paddlescuddlesbubblesgurgles]

So I’m simply too fat to shop at stores for most clothing, but underwear at least does fit me mostly from places like Walmart, Target, etc.

Mostly.

Usually my thighs rip the band around the legs opening of the boxer briefs. Usually when I buy new pairs I have a few days of my thighs destroying this opening until it’s been stretched out enough for me to wear comfortably. Threads pop off, there is creaking and tearing sounds, the usual affair.

I decided I would try something new. String briefs. Finally no leg openings to destroy, and less fabric in general to stretch. Covers the important parts well. I bought the biggest they had, fits perfect! Or so I thought. Earlier today I am pulling them on and I pull it a little too far up, stretch it a little too wide…it rips. Right at the string connecting to the front of the briefs.

Oops.